Jean straightened as his considered Levi's proposal. On one hand, the thought of sparring with the captain was enough to give him a ripple of fear down his spine, even in his compromised state. He had witnessed Levi's abilities firsthand more times than he could count, and he wasn't keen on being on the reciprocating end of it.
On the other hand, this offered a unique opportunity for both him and Connie, and for the recruits he had dedicated so much time into training. Arya was exhausted and Levi was still handicapped by his brace and rehabilitation; that would certainly make this easier, wouldn't it?
Jean turned to the cadets watching captivated from the sidelines.
"Fall in, soldiers." He cried, turning back to face Levi and Arya with a wry smile. "This right here is a once in a lifetime opportunity to face off against one of humanity's best; let's not waste it." The cadets remained stationary for an uncomfortable amount of time, though eventually four of Jean's recruits stepped forward, looking incredibly nervous.
"Alright captain, you've got yourself a deal. Even these odds still tip in your favor, but I hope you don't expect us to hold back given your current… afflictions."
Connie was shaking his head frightfully at Jean's words but held tight despite the overwhelming desire to turn tail and run in the opposite direction.
Levi nodded. "I would expect no less."
Their standoff began anew; Jean, Connie and four other soldiers against captain Levi and captain Arya.
Arya tried to remain focused on the task at hand, but she couldn't stop her mind from spiraling. Their relationship might have warmed since that day under the oak tree, but why had he felt the need to step in and defend her? Did he see her as weak, someone in need of protecting, or was it something else that drew him to her side? She didn't understand his presence beside her, not until Jean and his forces began racing confidently towards them not a moment later.
In that brief pause of time before contact Levi shifted his gaze to hers, and that simple look told her everything she needed to know. Somewhere between the friction of their meeting, the anger they had felt toward one another, and the release they had from their discontent, a connection was born. As impossible as this might have seemed not 3 weeks prior, here it was staring her in the face. These were not enemies they faced, but the truth behind it remained the same: he would fight for her, just as she had fought for him.
Arya closed her eyes as the attacking team approached. Seconds before they connected with their intended targets her eyes shot open; reaching out to grab Levi's already outstretched hand with none of her usual trepidation of physical contact. Using his body weight as an anchor point to swing out in a semi-circle in front of them, Arya activated her compressed gas to create a ring of dust that effectively blocked their opponent's line of sight. Jean and his team glided to a stop just as Levi and Arya leaped over them, diving into the center of the group. They all broke rank and scattered, missing their blades by inches.
Connie tumbled to the ground and rolled over, narrowly avoiding Arya's boots as they came down hard near his head. They were both grinning widely at each other, Connie leaping to his feet and charging just as the recruit named Quinn joined in beside him. Parrying back and forth they were able to slowly push Arya backwards from the center of the training field and away from where Jean and the remained cadets were trading blows with Levi.
His movement was still rigid, and certain motions sent a sharp pain through his knee and into his hip, but Levi held his ground just the same, deflecting the cadets blows with ease. Jean was unquestionably skilled, but the presence of his subordinates was distracting him. It was clear he was trying to make this a teaching moment, which had him barking out commands more than fighting. The recruits weren't half bad, but it was clear they were lacking in practical application of what they had learned.
A gentle tugging sensation broke through Levi's concentration as his fended off a half -assed maneuver from a man he believed was called Orin. A quick glance around told him no one had touched him or grabbed him in any way, but the pull was still there. Years of natural instincts stole over his movements, and he started taking side steps in a large arch to the right without quite understanding his tactical reasoning for it.
A hurried look to the far side of the field made it clear that this was a good direction to go in; Connie and another recruit had Arya pinned between the edge of the grounds and the western side of the building. At first, he assumed that she was toying with them; it only took one calculated leap to the wall and over to rid herself of them, but she remained on the ground, stooped low.
Then he watched her clench her teeth only a fraction, her arm bent slightly to cover the left side of her ribcage: Jean's blow to her ribs had done more damaged then expected, though any signs she was in pain were masked carefully. This injury would make it very difficult to use her ODM, and if she did it ran the risk of her probable cracked rib puncturing something internally. Why didn't she just call it off, then? This wasn't a real battle, and Levi knew that Connie would immediately drop any advance if he knew she was hurt. Yet Arya was still fighting through gritted teeth as if her life depended on it.
She fights for her life now because someday it will be.
Arya's eyes caught his for a split second during a downward strike on Quinn, who dodged out of the way with only millimeters to spare. The tugging sensation in his chest gave a sudden lurch as if a tether had been roped around him. It was her; she was the one pulling on him. How was that possible? As her arms swung back around to deflect another blow, he could see that she held one of her swords underhand.
Before he could even begin to comprehend what was going on, Levi was running. Ignoring the protest of his leg he knocked three of the four recruits to the ground in a matter of seconds, launching over them with a blast of air and extending his cables into the branch he had been resting on not an hour before. Flying high into the air, he pulled back his holster and threw it forward, releasing the blade as his arm came down.
The wooden sword shot from its' hilt like an arrow, impacting Quinn's raised blade with a splintering crash and wrenching it from her hand. He engaged the mechanisms again into the concrete wall and was skimming towards Connie and Quinn at top speed. Somehow Arya has pushed her counterattack in the exact right direction to shove them into his line of fire, but they heard him coming.
The pair dived backwards as he sped passed them, retracting his gear and going into a deep slide in front of Arya, his knee throbbing painfully. Before he had even come to a stop, she whirled around him in an elegant twist and pushed Connie and Quinn back in a series of refined blows.
The rest of the cadets ran to the front line, but Jean just stood with his mouth open as he watched Levi and Arya's impeccable choreography. They moved around each other now like they were dancing; an irrevocable force that acted as if they were tied together on either end of a rope, building power and momentum like a hurricane. The onlookers had fallen silence once again as they watched in awe, the power rolling off them pushing out like waves.
Just as the defending team started to scramble back in alarm, Arya collapsed.
Sound returned the world in a deafening roar, as everyone scrambled towards her prone form that Levi had only just been able to catch before she hit the ground.
Connie's equipment clattered to the dirt as he fell to his knees beside them, reaching out to unclip her chest harness so it didn't interfere with her breathing.
"What happened?! She seemed totally fine! Tired but…" He looked up as Armin came crashing through the crowd and dropped beside him. His face was severe in its worry, touching the side of her neck.
"Her pulse is erratic, but it's there." He said in a near whisper.
"She has a cracked rib on her left side halfway down; it's possible it punctured something." Levi's voice hoarse, as if all his energy was spent.
Armin looked at him fearfully, extending his hands to feel along the left side of Arya's ribcage: He was right.
"How did you know that?" Armin asked in confusion. Levi didn't answer, he only looked on blank faced as Connie started undoing her harness.
"We need to get her chest wrapped for that rib, but if it caused any internal bleeding, we need to call in another doctor immediately." Connie said as he pulled off her equipment. He couldn't look at her face: if he did, he knew who he would see in her place. Closing his eyes tightly, he turned his head in Armin's direction. "We have to get her out of this heat, if she's dehydrated enough, it might" –
Arya sat up with a heaving gasp, eyes flying open as everyone but Levi jumped back in surprise. Breathing hard she looked around wildly, disoriented by the mass of faces pressing in around her.
"God damn it Arya, you gave us all a heart attack!" Connie held his head in his hands and wiped his face. "Are you okay?"
She looked at him perplexed. "Yeah? I mean…My side hurts a little. Why am I on the ground? Did uh… did we win?"
She turned to Levi with such a hilariously innocent face that he laughed, a sound that caused Connie, Armin and Jean, who had pushed through the cadets when he heard Arya gasp, to look at each other in bewilderment. Had they ever heard the captain laugh before? They could think of only one other instance: when Historia punched him after her coronation.
"Hard to call it a win when you cheated by passing out."
Arya frowned. "I don't remember passing out… we were fighting, then my head got really fuzzy and… ouch." She moaned softly, clutching her cracked rib with surprise.
"We need to call another doctor up to rule out internal bleeding." Armin was regarding her with frantic worry again.
"No, no, I don't think it's that bad, just a hairline fracture. I'll just wrap it up and take it easy; I'll be good to go by the time we leave." She gave him an encouraging smile and started to gather herself up but winced as a sharp pain rippled through her side.
Armin reached out to offer her his hand, but Levi was already scooping her up and onto to her feet. Connie wrapped an arm tightly around her waist, and with Jean on the other side mumbling a constant string of apologies that Arya was blowing off kindly, they half walked half carried her towards the still open door to her room. Gabi, Pieck and Falco met them at the threshold, and they all walked in together.
As he left to follow them, Armin looked back over his shoulder to see Levi walking stiffly towards his own quarters. He still didn't quite understand what they had all just witnessed. The captain was a team player deep down, but never before had Armin seen him play so heavily off of another person. He was more the stoic "swoop in and save" kind of warrior, not the ideal teammate that worked to match another soldier's skill in the way he had with Arya. But that wasn't the right description either: he hadn't been lowering his ability, he had been amplifying hers somehow, like they were channeling from the same energy.
Armin would find himself mulling over this bizarre interaction later that night in more depth, but for now he turned around and headed through the door to tend to Arya.