The curtains had been stirred. Eren knew that the wind had not done it. They whispered across the window and when they settled, Mikasa was crouched there. Back then, her hair was short, barely making it past her forehead. Eren's was long, down to his shoulders, crawling on his neck.
"Hi," Mikasa said.
Eren's bare feet touched the floor. "You're not supposed to be here," he whispered urgently. The girl's dorms were restless during these summer nights. Someone snored. Another rolled over in their cot. The old building groaned with the indigestion of swallowing all these kids whole.
Mikasa stuck her tongue out at him. Her own feet were filthy and Eren knew she must've crept around the back of the orphanage to avoid the nightly caretakers.
"Come on," Mikasa whispered back. He followed her out the window and onto the creaking limb of a sycamore tree. She skipped from branch to branch while Eren hoisted himself up carefully. They made it to the sloping roof of the dorms, slanted heavily over a protruding attic window like a giant's thunderous brow. The shingles were grainy with age. The night sky spread out before Eren and Mikasa like a forgotten empty city. There was a breeze but not enough to blow away the clouds and the dull moon was a gray creeping cataract. Eren sat at the peak of the roof and soaked in the darkness. Mikasa spun the weathervane and then pointed where it pointed.
"That's where we're going to live," Mikasa said.
"If someone actually adopts us," Eren said gloomily.
"Our parents are going to let us do whatever we want and we won't have a curfew." Mikasa looked at him pleadingly. Eren picked at his nightgown before conceding.
"We'll have the same room," he muttered.
Mikasa smiled just like he knew she would. "They won't separate us."
"They'll be rich." Eren was getting into it.
"They will be the Presidents of the United States."
"They'll be those famous people on the TV."
"They will be kings and queens."
"We'll get to be princes and princesses." Eren looked away, suddenly shy. "You can be the princess."
"I want to be a knight," Mikasa said. She lifted her chin. "Eren, I'll protect you."
"Do you swear?" Eren said.
Mikasa kneeled on the roof beam and bowed her head solemnly. "I promise, my lord." Eren giggled and tapped her shoulder like King Arthur had done in the faded story books sitting on the shelves of the playroom.
"You have to always be by my side!" Eren said. "And never be away from me for more than five minutes!"
Mikasa considered the commitment. "What if-"
"Never!"
"But-"
"Never!"
"Okay," she said, sitting down next to him. The sycamore tree branches swayed drunkenly in the warm breeze. The moon lent them enough light to see their future. "We'll be together, forever."
Eren opened his eyes. The fluorescent glare of the MRI machine was above him instead of the soft stars of the orphanage sky. His arms were crossed over his chest.
"You have a couple more seconds, Eren." He heard Levi's voice from outside. The machine turned him inside out and then spat him onto the gurney. He breathed. His hospital gown deflated around his chest.
Eren waited in the hall while Levi talked with the doctor. After a while, Levi exited, muttering to himself: "half a million dollars a year to personally deliver me the news of his own ineptitude. I need to stop hiring quacks."
"What did he say?" Eren said, standing.
"Nothing of importance." Levi pumped the hand sanitizer station on their way out of the clinic. "I'm flying in a specialist from Japan. Someone who actually knows what they're doing."
Eren was quiet.
"Wipe that pitiful look off your face," Levi said. "We're getting ice cream."
They were at the car. Gunther, in his secret-service suit and sunglasses, opened the passenger door for Levi and then rushed around to open the side door for Eren. He and Eren did their special handshake, Gunther grinning.
"I thought I was grounded?" Eren slid into the backseat.
"You are. Until you learn the value of respecting authority, which, let's be honest here, will never happen," Levi said.
"I respect my elders," Eren said pointedly. He caught Levi's scowl in the rear view mirror.
"Anyway, I need you for questioning, away from the other sulky brat," Levi said. He nodded at Gunther; a signal. Gunther inserted earbuds and Eren heard heavy metal rock filtering out through them. Their conversation was now private.
"What did you do to the people I visited yesterday?" Levi asked casually.
Yesterday, after depositing a large check in the bank account of their deceased waitress's family, Levi's travels had taken him to see Zeke.
"Why," Levi had said slowly, "is he not in prison."
Zeke was splayed out in a hospital bed, hooked up to various beeping machines. He had the face of a sleeping king, with aversive dreams disturbing the peace of unconsciousness. A ventilator around his face fogged up every time he breathed.
"He's in a coma," the doctor said. "Lost consciousness as soon as the police took him into custody."
"Restraints, at the very least-" Levi protested.
"They're not necessary." The doctor consulted her charts. "There's not an spark of brain activity that suggests he'll ever wake up. He's running on the city's taxes now. We think he suffered some sort of spinal injury during the robbery. Maybe due to a inexperienced attempt at a civilian's arrest?"
"I barely touched him," Levi said dismissively. No one else had either, not even Mikasa with her big metal toy, no one else except-
(-Levi watched as Eren snagged Zeke's wrist, was he trying to disarm him? Had the boy lost his mind? But it seemed he found it again when the veins stood out on his temples, his teeth clenched like he had bit into something bitter, and the color had drained from Zeke's face and the man looked like a walking corpse, the kind you'd find in the spring after a long winter-)
Levi flipped open his cell phone and dialed a number. "Petra, please prepare the jet," he said, "and, while you're not busy, compile a list of all those involved in the missions. I don't care if it's a random kid we rescued or some guy three blocks down who heard about it on the news. I want everyone."
Out of everyone, there were five hospitalized for the unfortunate condition of being brain-dead. Kruger had been the cop who had responded to their distress call during the shootout in Oakland, California. Levi remembered the stench of his cigarettes and he remembered-
(-Eren was shaking his hand, saying that he wanted to be like him when he grew up, laying it on real thick, when suddenly his grip tightened and Kruger had jolted as though shocked by a joy buzzer and there was something about the dullness of Kruger's eyes afterwards-)
And Frieda Reiss, the preacher's daughter from when they saved everyone from a church fire-
(-when she passed the religious pamphlet to Eren, their fingers brushed, and it was like romance in the movies, except the dreamy look on Frieda's face was, not from love, but from a distant glimpse of the place she'd been advertising on her little leaflet, a place in the sky-)
There had been Galliard, the brat from the Chesterfield High bus-jacking-
(-Eren clapped Galliard's shoulder in a decidedly manly and un-Eren-like way and he was talking about how he admired how calm Galliard had been through the whole thing and Galliard wasn't listening, he was staring slack-jawed elsewhere with the drooling stupidity that Levi associated all teenagers with-)
Sister Tybur, the flight attendant from when Mikasa stopped that plane from crashing-
(-Eren bumped into her in the aisle, a drink spilling down his front, and Levi was scolding him and Sister Tybur was just standing there while the spilled champagne pooled slowly on the plane floor-)
Pieck, the champion of the Esports tournament that had been interrupted by an active bomb threat-
(-Eren needed an autograph, he was her biggest fan, which Levi found odd considering Eren had never touched a video game in his life, and odder still that it was Pieck who was so shell-shocked to meet him-)
All five of them had slipped into a coma shortly after the strike team's involvement, same as Zeke.
Eren looked over Levi's research while stirring his melting root beer float. Bulging manila folders, stuffed with police reports, hospital records, life stories, crime scene pictures, some ringed with coffee stains, some old and crumpled, newspapers from years ago, were strewn across the outdoor table of Eren's favorite ice cream parlour. The day was too cold for ice cream. Eren set down the file he'd been looking over, the one that detailed the Galliard boy's mounting medical bills.
"They're not dead," he finally said.
"They're brain-dead," Levi said. He took a bite out of his mint-chocolate chip cone and waited. Eren seemed to consider having some of his float. He put the spoon to his mouth with the tiniest sip and Levi was sure any sugar he got had dissolved before even making it to his taste buds.
"I don't have much longer, do I?" Eren asked.
Levi whipped out his handkerchief, cleaned his hands thoroughly, and removed a polished brown box with gold hinges from his briefcase. Eren scrapped his chair forward. Levi set the box on the table and sank his fingers into two indents on the side. The box flipped open, unfolding into a chess board. Under the platform was a collection bin that rumbled out all the pieces like clattering slot machine chips. Eren and Levi set up. The game began.
Eren thought hard about his first few plays like Levi had taught him. Levi had hoped that by honing Eren's strategic eye, it'd help him piece together the fragments of his visions, pull the separate parts into a whole.
"You have a good couple decades left in you if I can help it. It's about what you do with that time." Levi kept his pieces close; Eren sacrificed pawn after pawn and gained ground for it. The chess clock's timer jumped back and forth as they burned through turns.
"That's the thing though: I don't," Eren said, reaching. Levi's rook went down. Levi watched it happen with a baleful eye. "It knows it too. That's why it's been pushing so hard these past couple weeks."
"Whose 'it'? Does 'it' have a name?"
"It's a monster that appears in my nightmares every night. Whenever I kill it, it just comes back the next night. When it finally kills me, I'm dead… I think."
"Must be tiresome," Levi said easily. His bishop stabbed across the board, sliced through a pawn and then stole away back to home ground. Eren's gaze was sharp.
"Don't pretend like you don't believe me," he said, "you know that you don't know anything about me and Mikasa, no matter how much your scientists tried to figure us out."
"Oh, I believe you," Levi said, watching Eren's knight go on a rampage, cutting swathes through his ranks in the next couple turns. Levi made a few minor adjustments to minimize damage. "I'm just a little bit insulted to be just now learning how that brain of yours functions. What other powers have you been keeping secret? Can you fly?"
"I can see my own death sometimes," Eren hissed, smacking the chess clock just as he was about to run out of time for his turn. Levi frowned and chose not to act on Eren's pathetic move. " When a bright enough soul dies, it's like a-"
"Yes, yes." Levi waved his hand impatiently. "It's like a flare. I quizzed Mikasa on it yesterday. It's funny; she became a lot less close-mouthed after I cut a month off her punishment."
Eren's jaw worked side-to-side. "Well, when my soul goes out, its going to be like a black hole. Because I'm dying, the black hole is already forming and all those other bright souls are being pulled towards me. I can feel them being sucked in, even when I'm not doing the pulling."
"Your biological father," Levi said flatly. "That's what happened to him."
"He was the first." Eren sounded proud.
Levi imagined his own soul spiraling away from him, a weak, wispy tail streaming from his chest like a comet being fed into a deep, inescapable gravitational pull. He imagined Eren suddenly lunging from the table, all fangs, to pull, to rip everything from its foundations, to thrust out feelers, the outer workings of a tornado, to crumple, smash, compress every bit of Levi that made him himself into a tiny core and swallow him. Levi's queen flashed to the other side of the board.
"I think the monster was pulled too and it wants me and Mikasa's power," Eren said. His knights, his bishops, fell to the queen.
"That's why I need those souls to fight it," he said, looking to the papers littering the table. His hand strangled Levi's captured little men. "You want to protect Mikasa, too, right?"
"What's with all this talk about Mikasa?" Levi said. "There's a reason why I left the other brat at school. It's just you and me today, Eren. I told you yesterday: we're going to figure this out."
"You want me to give them back!" Eren jumped up, slammed his hands on the table. The chess pieces wobbled, held in place by magnetic fixtures. "I won't! You can't make me. Mikasa needs me."
Levi threw his handkerchief over the game of chess like a flag of surrender. "I give up." He began scooping all the papers back into the folders. He threw away the ice cream. He tucked the chess board back into his briefcase. "She needs you to cheer for her, that's for sure. She's got that big tournament today, with whatever-the-fuck sport she plays, and God knows her performance is awful when she's not getting any attention."
"It's for fencing," Eren said tonelessly.
"I can barely remember your names, give me a break. Anyways, get your ass in gear. If you'd actually had some of your ice cream instead of smearing it on your lips, you'd have some energy. Come on. Let's go support your girlfriend."
"She's-" Eren blushed.
"Wasn't done talking," Levi interrupted him. "You're right. She does need you. And you need her just as much. "
###
Mikasa sat on the cool bench in the girl's locker room and rocked, holding herself. She was in nothing but her underwear and cold sweat seeped from every pore of her body; a full-bodied shuddering had taken root and she was sure that the shaking would start to send parts of her flying like a wound machine coming undone, flinging itself to pieces with the rapid pace of malfunction.
The headache was back.
The headache had never left, lying dormant, and now it was back, throttling the hot mess of her brain matter.
The four advils she had taken this morning had done nothing to deter it. Mikasa knew that only the carelessly prescribed Oxycontin, snugly rolled up in one of her socks at home, would do anything for her but she couldn't afford to be foggy today. With tremendous effort, Mikasa got dressed: britches, come on, find the button and zipper; shoes, no wrong order, socks first; high-collared shirt like a 19th century hospital orderly ; shoulder pads, emblazoned with fierce strikes of blue; gloves; vest and kendo mask, feel like a beekeeper with a faulty helmet, not going to keep those awful swelling stings at bay.
She stumbled into the gymnasium as though sleepwalking.
Levi cursed from the bleachers. He had a blue foam finger on. "She's sick again."
"Maybe its just nerves?" Eren said.
"Nervous about what? Winning against these incompetent clowns?" Levi said. Eren shrank in his seat as a PTA mom turned around to glare at Levi.
"And, born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts, we have Mikasa Ackerman, our very own student of Smithson High." Erwin's voice came from the loudspeaker. Mikasa stiffly made her way to the floor mat, where her opponent bowed to her. Mikasa only inclined her head. "As you all know, this is a blitz tournament; there will be no breaks and limited time-outs. If you lose, you are out. There is no loser's bracket. The winner will receive the opportunity to advance to the state finals."
"Eren?" Levi said, concerned.
Everything was underwater to Eren. The crowd murmurs were muted. Levi's words sounded like the came from miles away through a faulty telephone line. Darkness fringed his vision. Sleep pulled him into a deep, spiraling well. His chin nearly nodded to his chest. The wakeful world was merely a pinprick of light that he could make out from the bottom. He was not alone in the well; the freaks whispered, called, like sirens in the murky waves, and Eren knew that it was coming, barreling down, lunging.
He stumbled to his feet- "I need to use the bathroom-" a slurred whisper. Spots danced before his eyes. He was out of the gym, in the halls, there was a door, and Eren was fainting just as he slammed it behind him, falling into the broom closet, consciousnesses abandoned.
The castle stood alone in the desert. Turrets and buttresses gleamed like picked clean bones. The moat was dry, eroded. Slim spires tipped with iridescent pearl thrust into the sky like nuclear test site rockets. Windows gazed wonderously into the hearts of the many rooms in the castle. Eren came to on a hay bale spilling out the back of a wagon in the courtyard.
"Welcome back, sweetheart." Galliard grinned. He was cleaning his teeth with the teeth of his shield, like some evil, barbaric version of the tooth fairy.
"Oh not now, why now!?" Eren moaned.
"That's no way to greet your friends," Pieck rebuked. Her mother ship was above them, hazy in the desert sun.
"We art here to serve thou." Frieda kneeled while Eren brushed off the hay. He hopped off the wagon, stumbling, unused to being ten years old all of the sudden. Sister Tybur's silky ropes steadied him.
"Where's Mikasa?" Eren said, looking around.
"She's not in this one, I'm afraid," Kruger said, leaning against a sandbag target spiked with arrows. Grisha was on lookout duty, hovering nervously near the drawbridge. Zeke was playing with the doctor's slithering needles; they hissed, reared back, beads of liquid instant-sleep dripping from their tips. Zeke cooed, they cautiously drew forward, wrapping around his frostbitten index finger, exploratory.
"It's never during the day! It always comes at night! Why?" Eren paced back and forth.
"You can't feel it?" Pieck's computations chattered and jangled like anxious magpies. "Its so much stronger. We got lucky last time. Please tell me you got us another soul."
Eren could feel it; it felt like spreading heat. "I didn't have the chance."
"That's bullshit," Galliard growled.
Pieck sighed; radio static. "In any case, its-"
"Here! Oh, its here! Oh dearie me, oh lordy above, oh great, gibbering-" Grisha zipped in erratic circles, his needles wriggling in panic. His steam-powered jet pack flew him face-first into a battlement, and he fell, making a dust-angel, his needles splayed out behind him.
Kruger and Sister Tybur had enough sense to raise the drawbridge, and lower the gate; they laboured on the wheel and the former and later came up and came down. Zeke peered through the gate.
A star landed in the distant desert like a lone astronaut exploring a desolate planet. The explosion rocked the foundation of the castle. The sky turned red and they learned that Hell was above them, not below. The Anti-Juggerknight came in great bounding strides, plunging forward with spurts of fire on its heels and great blazing trails in its wake.
"Oh!" Zeke drew back from the gate, his icicle beard wet and melting from the approaching heat.
"Stand ready," Eren said. "We attack it all at once, like we did last time. We can win."
The Anti-Juggerknight cleared the moat in a spray of sand and ash and its momentum carried it into another rocket jump. It came down, slammed its heavy boot into the gate. The gate crumpled. The wall of the castle crumpled with it. Dust engulfed them. In a shower of castle-fall, the Anti-Juggerknight stepped forward, groaning, hissing, steaming, gripped by the desire to make them feel what it feels all the time, how it feels to burn eternally. The freaks edged around it in a semi-circle, waiting.
Without warning, it fired its claw. Eren's eyes widened. He was thrust back, slammed into the wall of the castle, gasping for breath, all the wind knocked out of him. The claw had him by the throat. He sucked in air, his ten year old feet struggling to stay on the ground. The wire connected to the Anti-Juggerknight's gauntlet was loose, limp on the ground. Eren knew that if it were to tighten, even a little bit, his windpipe would be crushed. The freaks froze; they'd lost. Eren was dead, so they had lost.
The Anti-Juggerknight tilted its head back and gargled. Bubbles of magma rose to a boil in its split helmet. Its belly spat fire, whooshing out a concentrated flaming wind. The freaks recoiled. Eren's tear ducts were sucked of their moisture. The Anti-Juggerknight swiveled, directing its fire-breathing. When it was done, a ring of fire stood tall all around them. The Anti-Juggerknight raised its hand in a creak of metal. It gestured: come forth. Then, a singular index finger: one at a time. It was a challenge. Trial by fire. It stomped a foot, boom, and-
Mikasa's headache spiked. Her muscles were seized. Her opponent was good enough to know that he wasn't good enough to face Mikasa straight on, so he was patient, attempting to bait her into a stupid move as the time ticked down.
"Don't fall for it, Mikasa," Levi called from the bleachers, and was immediately shushed by the PTA moms, who had been united by the righteous cause of hating Levi's guts.
Mikasa waited for her opportunity, and saw it when her opponent took his eyes off her sword. She struck without moving much of the rest of her body, her sword was its own thing and-
Galliard stepped up, bouncing on his toes. His shield barked, a segmented bone-tongue lolling out of its mouth with excitement. "I got this, Eren, let me at him!"
"No! We need Pieck to go first to weaken it up! Did you hear me? I just said that you'll go second to last," Eren rasped, claw still around his throat.
"See, you're crazy if you think I'm waiting that long to get my revenge. This is a grudge match." Galliard bared his multitude of teeth. "Whose dying first, now, bitch?"
The Anti-Juggerknight seemed to accept this sacrifice. The claw shot back into place from Eren's neck. He sank against the wall panting. Kruger offered him a cigarette and Zeke blew cold air in his face which actually helped a little.
The Anti-Juggerknight roared and the battle began. Galliard danced around like the ground was hot. The claw came flying once more. Galliard was ready this time, his shield at an angle, and the claw glanced off it, ricocheting into a tower bell with an echoing GONG-
Mikasa winced, parrying her next opponent's desperate rush at the last second while her headache was loud with agony-
-and Galliard was crawling along a castle wall with his bone talons. He dodged the other claw, which came crashing into the stone, and he swung from a wooden beam onto an arching walkway. The Anti-Juggerknight's claws were both out now, wires crisscrossing, and it watched Galliard, trying to free them from the stone. Galliard pounced, shield in front of him, its scissoring jaws came wide open to feast, before both of the Anti-Juggerknight's claws came loose, rushing back, scything through the air. They crossed. Galliard was in between them. His bits and pieces and bones and teeth rained down and the Anti-Juggerknight roared again with bloodlust-
Mikasa's head split open again, just as she was finishing up her prey. Instead of a clean hit on the other girl's torso, it was sloppy, striking just below her shoulder. The ref counted it fortunately, as the crowd muttered with dissatisfaction. She looked to the bleachers. Levi raised his foam finger, not an once of humor on his face. Eren wasn't there. She took off her kendo mask, wiped sweat off her pounding forehead as she advanced to the next round-
Frieda leveled her cyber-sword. Her visor glare blotted out her eyes. Her helmet shifted and pulsed like a mechanized bug crouched on her head and it inserted its robotic feelers into the open slots on her temples. Frieda stiffened, gritting her teeth as she was jolted with the extra energy stored in her exoskeleton pack like adrenaline.
"Remember, you don't need to win," Eren told her. "You just need to weaken it; go for one of its claws or something."
"Play the long game," Kruger said, already through his sixth cigarette.
"The beast shall die with me," Frieda snarled, crazed with the serum, the vigor, that lurked in her spinal cord. She charged, yelling. The Anti-Juggerknight, aimed, then stopped, realizing this would be have to be close-combat. Frieda thrust her sword and Anti-Juggerknight side-stepped just to have Frieda's roundhouse kick slam into his helmet. There was a slight dent. The freaks cheered, Eren shouted, "yes!" Frieda pressed forward and her sword suddenly shrunk to a dagger; when she lashed at the Anti-Juggerknight's head, it sprung back to its full size, shearing off one the Anti-Juggerknight's horn. The monster staggered, off-balance, and Frieda gasped. Too late, she realized it was a trick. The Anti-Juggerknight's stomach was pointed straight at her. The holy crusader was engulfed in hellfire like the sinners she punished, burning away her very essence. All that remained was her blackened armor and her-
Mikasa's sword whistled. Her aim was true. The buzzer sounded and her opponent stalked off the mat. Mikasa watched her name move through the bracket on the board, and knew that this was a war of attrition. Five more battles to go. Eren still hadn't got back from the bathroom. While she guzzled her water during the break period, the war continued in her head-
Sister Tybur had disappeared. The Anti-Juggerknight kept up a constant stream of hissing flame like a gas valve leaking explosive carbon dioxide to make sure she couldn't get close. It searched, watching for movement. There! A ghost in one of the castle windows! The claw crashed through the window, into some princess's room. There was nothing. Sister Tybur was behind the Anti-Juggerknight. Quickly, her cord wrapped its neck and with a mighty heave, snapped its head around to the sound of a broken neck. Her assassination attempt had failed. The Anti-Juggerknight just glared with its head on backwards. It grabbed Sister Tybur and slammed her into the ground; her tendrils writhed, earthworms wiggling in the rain, before the sabaton came down, stomping her flat. The tendrils shot straight up like stiffened, dead hairs-
Mikasa turned her back to the bleachers, crushing up two more advils into her water bottle. She took a big swig, draining it. Her hands shook violently. Dehydration from sweating so much was inevitable. Her migraine had split her in half and she put both hands on either sides of of her head to keep the separate halves from sliding apart, onto the floor mat. The next challenger came-
Pieck kept her distance, firing her sniper shots from up in the sky, her iron-hulled ship rolling and dipping as she dodged the terrible claws. She was chipping away at the Anti-Juggerknight, never getting a clean shot at the head, but the glancing blows were still doing damage. The monster's armor was pocked with bullet holes and its metal tendon of its shoulder had been ripped through, leaving one claw inoperable. The Anti-Juggerknight's heat died suddenly; its belly lit up, bright blue flames brewing, gathering all its fire in one place, before it blasted off, launching the Anti-Juggerknight into the sky. The Anti-Juggerknight sunk its claw into Pieck's body and they plummeted into a castle tower. An explosion bloomed; Pieck's turret landed in the sand; bits of her wreckage soon followed like a fine rain-
Wave after wave, her enemies came. Mikasa beat them all. Her head, her head, her head, make it stop, let it end, I surrender, and yet at the same time: I'm not fucking losing-
Zeke heaved his massive blue bloat onto the battlement, pitching snowballs at the Anti-Juggerknight and laughing. He was King-Kong on a skyscraper. The snowballs, filled with the same magic that had brought upon woolly mammoths and saber-tooth tigers, had a miraculous effect on the Anti-Juggerknight: it was slowing down, frost crawling along its armor. Ice and fire fought for dominance. Zeke bellowed and hurled a big snowball this time and it landed right in the Anti-Juggerknight's belly. There was the loudest hiss of a great campfire being finally put out. Zeke had taken out the deadly stomach and in return was taken out when the Anti-Juggerknight plunged its fist through the battlement wall, sending the great ape tumbling to the ground-
Levi had walked over to the ref, told him to cut Mikasa from the tournament, she was sick, you see, about to be sick all over her helmet, and Mikasa refused, grunting out that she was fine, she could still fight-
"Okay, Kruger, this is it," Eren said. He was massaging Kruger's shoulders. The Anti-Juggerknight waited patiently, sinisterly. "You're my ace. The stomach is down. One claw is gone. You can win."
"While I appreciate the vote of confidence, its not like I have a choice," Kruger said. He jabbed a thumb toward Grisha who was cowering behind a courtyard statue of a king. "Because he can't win." Kruger rose to his full height.
"Should I send Grisha out first then?" Eren asked.
"No. Who knows how long the stomach will stay frozen for." Kruger cracked his knuckles, stretched out his long, lanky figure. "We must do it now."
"If this is going to be the last time we'll ever talk…" Eren started to say.
"Save the good luck kiss for Mikasa," Kruger advised.
"Ew. I was just going to say that, out of everyone, you're the least intolerable."
Kruger tipped his police hat to Eren and walked into the ring of flames. The Anti-Juggerknight growled, still thawing from Zeke's attacks. From his belt, Kruger drew a shining black nightstick. It was weighted at the top and battered too, as though he'd beaten some jaywalker's brains in with it. Kruger twirled the thing between his fingers lovingly.
"Come on, then," he said.
The Anti-Juggerknight advanced, shaking off the stupor of winter. Its claw raised, fired, and Kruger rolled to the left. He landed in a tactical kneel, drew a taser, and returned fire. Electricity lept and crackled along the ruts of the Anti-Juggerknight's armor. It was immobilized, jittering. Kruger tore off his tie, slipped it around the rope that held the colored flags and banners above the courtyards and used it as a zip line. He closed the distance. The Anti-Juggerknight, still being tasered, swung its gauntlet clumsily, and Kruger dropped below it, flattening himself to the ground like a spider, and then he retreating, backpedaling. The Anti-Juggerknight roared in outrage; its sabatons had been handcuffed together. Now, Kruger stalked towards it. His peeled lips were moving and Eren could just make out the Miranda rights.
Kruger bashed the club against the back of its knee and it sank to a kneel. He jimmied his nightstick into the other clawed shoulder, place his boot on its chest and strained mightily; the tendons in his too-long neck showed themselves in great bulges. Metal shrieked. The Anti-Juggerknight fought for balance, groaning in frustration. The arm came off. Kruger tossed it to the side. He stood in front of the Anti-Juggerknight, breathing heavily. It raised its head, a billow of steam escaping the slit of its helmet. Kruger brought the nightstick down and down and down again, beating it methodically, backhand, overhand, shave off this bit of armor, get rid of that part, what makes you live, machine? What makes you die? his nightstick asked of it every time in came down in that savage arc. Oil spattered the dusty floor like black blood. The Anti-Juggerknight garbled, its face caved in, its armor lying in bits around it. Kruger's milky eyes told of nothing. He raised the nightstick one last time, aiming for decapitation-
"Kruger!" Eren shouted. "The stomach!"
The maw had thawed. Kruger brought the nightstick down right as the great belly of the beast came alive, springing forward. It swallowed the honest policeman whole in a scorching vortex-
"Born in Kazan, Russia, Annie Leonhart has traveled a long way to get here. We will see if she'll be leaving with the championship title under her belt." Annie wore traditional white fencing gear. She looked bored. "Are you sick or something?" she asked Mikasa; her Russian accent was faint. "Winning against someone whose ill is not any fun."
"I'm fine," Mikasa ground out, although she was suspecting a brain tumor at this point. "Let's just get it over with. May the best one win."
"I plan to," Annie said, drawing her sword-
Eren whirled around, grabbing Grisha by his shoulders. "Dad, okay, look, I know we haven't always seen eye-to-eye-"
"You stole my soul and forced me to fight endlessly for you," Grisha said, frowning.
"And you experimented on your own kid! Who does that?" Eren shook himself. "Anyways, that's not the point. The point is, you have to win. I have full faith in you. For once in your life, make me proud to be your son."
Grisha straightened, his glasses fogging up.
"Are," Eren said. "Are you crying?"
"Of course not!" Grisha blubbered, propelling himself with puffs of steam into the ring of fire. "I'll win this for you, son!"
He came face-to-face with the Anti-Juggerknight. It tilted its head curiously. Grisha gulped; looked at his needles; they shook their clear, glass snouts, their venom sloshing inside; no way. Grisha looked back at the Anti-Juggerknight and ran. Screaming at the top of his lungs, Grisha puttered away, into the entrance hall of the castle, out of boundaries. Eren watched as the Anti-Juggerknight roared and launched after him, the act of running inducing the act of chase, the thrill of the hunt. The castle shook, listed to the left, the bell tower sounded its alarm and-
Mikasa was struck blind. Gongs vibrated her skull. She blinked. Still darkness. She shook her head like an irritated bull with a flea. She tapped her temple, as though trying to knock in a wire that had been disconnected. Darkness, still. The only thing she could see was white flashes of lightning, but those weren't real, those were just her head lighting up her vision with sonar pings of agony. The ref asked her and Annie if they were ready and they both said they were-
Eren's plan was working. He saw, through the large windows on the sides of turrets, a terrified Grisha bolt up the stairs of the castle, through servant rooms and mess halls, past paintings and suits of armor, with the Anti-Juggerknight hot on his tail, crashing through walls, pillars, integral foundational parts of the castle. The whole structure sagged, rubble falling, clouds of dust settling, entire towers coming down as the Anti-Juggerknight chased Grisha. Eren climbed the battlement, and ran along the wall, thinking, I've got only one shot at this-
Mikasa readied her stance, thinking, I have only one shot at this. Annie was still; no rustling of gear or nervous shifting gave her away. But Mikasa knew without seeing that Annie was ten feet in front of her. She knew that Annie would give her no leniency and no second chances. Mikasa shut her blind, useless eyes and breathed deeply-
Eren was standing at the tip-top of the castle wall. He could see the courtyard below. The castle was falling. Deep cracks were branching out to the wall and the last turret was collapsing in on itself. He could hear Grisha's panicked yelps getting closer. Suddenly, the doctor came whizzing out of the crumbling castle entrance, sobbing with terror, his trench coat tattered, his glasses missing, his hair singed. The Anti-Juggerknight was right behind him, bearing down, its belly seething. Eren shut his eyes, breathed deeply, and stepped off the wall-
The buzzer sounded and Mikasa was off, lunging, her uncoiling muscles launching her forward, she heard Annie's sharp, surprised intake of breathe, and adjusted accordingly, she could smell the other girl's fear-scent, she could hear Levi's shout: "get her-!"
Eren dropped, landing right on the Anti-Juggerknight's back. His hands came up like a mad conductor's, fingers curled into claws. A tremendous weight settled at his palms, ripe with power. Saliva rushed to his mouth. He dug his fingers into the Anti-Juggerknight's temples and hit it with a supercharged defibrillator blast of what was in his mind.
This is what was in Eren's mind:
A small smile touched Mikasa's lips as she brought the strawberry ice cream cone to them, the day Levi had adopted them. See, Eren? Ice cream whenever we want.
The Anti-Juggerknight wailed with pain, throwing its head to the sky. Eren hit it again with another massive jolt.
Levi scowled as Eren check-mated him. He reached over, ruffled Eren's hair. You're getting better. They should have warned me at the orphanage that I'd adopted a grand master. Alright, kiddo, its bedtime.
The Anti-Juggerknight stumbled around dumbly, shaking its head, trying to dislodge him. Eren clung to its singular horn, gathered his power, and forced it out of him.
It was a image, not of the past, but of the future: Mikasa had won her fencing tournament. She was radiant and fierce, holding up her kendo mask victoriously like a warmonger with a severed head. The crowd cheered her name. Her cheeks were ruddy and her smile was unbroken. Sweat dripped down her nose. She had the worst case of helmet hair. She had never looked more beautiful. Eren rushed from the bleachers, whooping. She caught him around the waist and twirled him, with Eren laughing. Their eyes met. Heat gathered between them. Then, Mikasa gave a secretive smile, one just for him, and she dipped him low, pressing her feverish lips to his in a long, slow kiss.
The Anti-Juggerknight fell with the castle. It lay in the dirt, dead.
The buzzer blared. Mikasa had lost. The headache was gone. She opened her eyes, seeing again. She had lunged past Annie, out of bounds. Annie had her hand to her chest and her pupils were blown wide open with shock. Her sword hadn't even been raised. Later, spectators would be unable to describe Mikasa's lunge; they had simply blinked and she was there, out of bounds. A PTA mom had caught it on video and would go on to post the maneuver online, where it would later be played as an educational resource for fencing in English schools and known as a technique called the blitz. The loudspeaker announced Annie as the winner and the girl jerked about. Mikasa tore off her helmet and threw it. Hot tears sprang to her eyes. She stormed out. Levi caught her as she was leaving the gym.
"Hey-" he said.
"Where's Eren?" Mikasa demanded, shrugging off his arms.
"Bathroom, hey, let's talk, hey-!"
Mikasa left him by the door. She was heading for the boy's bathroom when she passed a broom closet. She stopped. There was a soft, recognizable snoring coming from it. She opened the door.
Eren was dozing, butt in a bucket, legs reclined on a shelf, head resting against a mop. Mikasa snapped her finger sharply. Eren snorted awake, blinking blearily. He saw her.
"Oh!" he said. "Did you win?"
"No," Mikasa said.
"Oh," Eren said. He looked all around, everywhere but her. He scooted; his butt was stuck in the bucket. "Mikasa, I can explain-"
His phone dinged. Mikasa grabbed it from his pocket. "Wait-" Eren reached, the bucket slipped backwards, spilling him on the floor along with a wave of brackish mop water.
It was an eight-ball pool message from Petra. She had made her move, now it was Eren's turn.
"Where were you," Mikasa said with no inflection.
"Okay, so there's this monster that comes every night-"
"You said you'd be there."
"I know but this was more important-"
"This is the only thing I care about," Mikasa said. Her cheeks were bright red, just like in Eren's image. He saw with a sick twist in his gut that he had made her cry. "I save people as the Juggerknight. That's my job. But I love fencing. It's what I want to do. You promised me you'd be there."
Eren felt his own tears start to form. "No, wait, wait, wait, I saved you! You don't understand, I was in your head, and there's thing called the Anti-Juggerknight, and I think its dead for good now, but I used to fight it all the time, and I can finally tell you the truth because you're not in danger anymore- just ask Levi!"
"You were in my head?" Mikasa said. "You were causing my headache?"
"Yes! Well-" Eren backtracked.
Mikasa had suddenly decided something. Eren hated the look on her face. He had never seen it before. "I don't care anymore," she said. "I don't need you to fight for me."
She leveled her gaze. No, no, no. This is not how it's supposed to go, Eren thought, this is-
"And I don't need you."
She left him in dark of the broom closet, staring at the wall. Levi found him there moments later and it was like years had passed.
###
The cycling zoo spun round and round in the quiet kitchen. There was a greenish, subterranean glow coming from the exhibits; the penguins had a simulated aurora that moved and rippled in strange patterns. Eren was sitting on the floor, meditating. He couldn't sleep. For the first time in a long time, there was nothing to fight.
The house was silent and the snow fell steadily outside. The call had gone out that there was no school tomorrow as the snow piled up, blocking roads and infrastructure, and the temperature dropped. Beyond the Ackerman mansion, there was frost studded telephone lines, dying wheat fields, frozen ponds and rivers, and icy railroad tracks.
Eren heard dull thumps on the roof. It sounded like the New Jersey devil and Santa's reindeer had met to have a conversation about career choices. It was the Juggerknight. Since she was grounded, Mikasa could only fly at night, when Levi was asleep. Eren thought of their dream. He thought of a dream he once had when he was young, where Mikasa could fly wherever she wanted to…
He made his way up the spiraling staircase to Mikasa's turret room. He raised a fist to knock. He lowered it and crept down to his own room. Opening up a travel bag, Eren began packing and imagined that it was for another mission tomorrow- up and at em, brats, Levi would say as they were getting ready at 4 in the morning, tucking his M9 in his holster. Eren hoisted the bag on his shoulder. He had his heavy-duty coat on, warm gloves, and a beanie. He still felt cold. He scrawled a note and hoped Mikasa would understand.
On his way to the foyer, he passed Levi's room. He listened- there was the faint sound of the television going, the buzz of static from the storm, and he knew Levi would be awake, letting the TV throw up its technicolor blurs onto the wall.
He continued to the entrance hall, where the storm had settled beyond the windows, draining the place of all its color. It was like the mansion was the only place on Earth, removed from the rest of humanity. Eren's hand closed on the doorknob and, quietly, like he was never here, he disappeared into the blizzard.
The door clicked shut.
###
The curtains had been stirred. No one in the boy's dorms was awake to see them whisper across the window, moved by some rogue wind. When they settled, Eren was crouched there. He knew which bed Mikasa slept in. She was moving around restlessly. Occasionally, she made a small gasping noise. She seemed to be having a nightmare. After tonight, she would never be afraid again.
Eren held out his hand over her. A tremendous weight traveled down his arms, to his hand. He cupped her forehead and pulled, not physically but with his mind…