Chapter 42

Those slender eyes trickle down, waterfalling from my face to my arm. "What happened to your jacket?"

I glance down without thinking. There, staring back up at me, is the puncture hole from where my cable darted straight through my sleeve. Ah, shit. "Got caught on a pole," I lie. "I was in such a hurry to get here that I didn't notice."

He stands silently, observing me, looking around the room. He doesn't ask why I wanted so desperately to be here of all places. "The hundred and seventh is supposed to report outside the mess hall," he says instead. Miraculously, he has yet to move into the room. Instead his eyes track to the broken window. The missing chair. The–

My heart freezes in my chest.

Thin strips of flesh, shorn from my mother's neck, still clutter the floor where they launched themselves after I yanked the cable out. Blood spatters the side of the table, the wooden planks, the edge of the finely woven runner. I wince and step hastily into his line of sight. "Armin." I keep my voice soft, yet fractured. Distressed. Strands of my composure leak out of my tone like stray hairs, wisping around me like a backlit halo. "I can't help but think"–my voice cracks–"this is what it must have felt like, back then. When the drafted refugees marched back into Shiganshina."

He sucks in a sharp breath. His eyes immediately lose focus. I've weaponized our shared agony. Taking him back to the time I narrowly exposed myself by trying to save his grandfather from the draft isn't exactly the smartest decision I can make at the moment. But with a still-warm corpse propped up in the corner and the wet slop of Hannes's inner jaw starting to crust under my fingernails, what else even holds enough weight to get him off my case?

I watch the boy whose brain I fear become exactly that: just a boy. Here, I remember, he's about to grow petrified. Eren will sacrifice himself to keep Armin safe. Their whole squad will get wiped out in the blink of an eye, and he will blame himself for being too cowardly to save even one of his friends. Thomas, and Mina–

Mina.

I can't breathe. "We have to get to the others," I choke out, trying not to look like a fish out of water, gills huffing and puffing for moisture they cannot find. "We have to stay together this time. Stay safe."

Some vaguely detached emotion flits onto his face. It simmers for a moment, then vanishes in turn. Only when it's gone does Armin nod, once, slowly. "We should go."

He steps to the side, as if to let me through first. Instead I hold the door open to force him out in front of me. The last thing I need is for him to snoop around and find a corpse where he shouldn't. How would I even begin to explain that away?

I glance at the section of the wall that's visible through the windows in the hall. Armin walks in front of me, shoulders pinched with curved anxiousness. "Where's Eren?"

"With Mikasa. They're already at the mess."

I'd like to ask plainly whether or not Eren entangled the Colossal Titan upon encounter. The degree to which this world retains its fated integrity is everything my survival is staked on. Hannes's dead fish eyes bulge to life in my mind's eye. He is what happens to someone who fails to anticipate and accommodate all the ways in which this world stays stagnant and yet never the same. "I didn't get a clear answer when I woke up," I start gingerly, forming my tone like a sculptor. Here lay the base. Coax the clay higher, chisel the marble down, stretch the stonework out. "What, exactly, is going on in Trost?"

This time Armin does look back over his shoulder. I watch him swallow apprehensively. "When you fainted last night, we brought you into the infirmary. Since then…the Colossal Titan appeared and kicked through the outer gate. Smaller titans have been filtering in ever since. Civilians are evacuating en masse right now…but it doesn't look good."

He's still watching me, so I press my lips together firmly and twist my brows into grim wrinkles.

We turn the corner, gunning for the stairs that come flush into sight. "And Hannes? Did you all talk to him last night, about how he survived?"

Armin shook his head. "Didn't get the chance to after you collapsed."

A dismayed sound hums out my throat. "Ah. I thought I could talk to him today, but it seems I couldn't catch him in time after the meeting."

Armin extends a hand towards the stair rail to guide his descent. I don't follow suit. "We'll see him again," he murmurs. I guess those are reassuring words, but the way he pronounces them makes the short sentence almost unsettling. Instinct proves me right a second later, when his words turn sharper. "Or maybe we won't. Maybe he was a phantom here to warn us. We failed to listen in time—now, Trost will fall."

Were I a better woman, I'd counter his claim. I would cheerfully rally his morale. I keep my mouth shut. For so long Hannes has been nothing but a phantom to me, haunting the pools in my mind, swimming around their edges diligently. Perhaps it's time to haunt another head. The only creature I still carry is my mother.

Our boots thunk onto the wooden floor. There's plenty of others here, with conversations thrown about haphazardly. I catch phrases and gesticulations as we weave through the fluctuating crowds towards the door outside. All around us are fresh cadets with knees knocked together and quivering eyes flush with fear. Officers of the garrison bark orders in an attempt to herd the fresh blood out the door and to the mess.

"This is it for humanity," the girl next to me mourns. Her shoulder strikes mine; she turns and glares.

How easy it is to ignore one's own hostility when preoccupied with the malice of another. Or maybe I'm the dick here, for failing to cut these people some slack. Not everyone here knows the world will not end today, nor tomorrow, nor even the day after that. The line will hold. The citizens will evacuate. And all the soldiers will breathe a collective sigh of relief—despite casualty counts—until Pyxis tries to recruit them to return inside Trost to seal the hole.

I become Armin's silent shadow, ruminating on how I can best assure Eren taps into the dormant Attack Titan's power. It shouldn't be that hard: it's Eren, after all, that I'm thinking of.

But his transformation comes at the cost of Mina's life. Can I gamble to save her, if it means risking his failure to transform? And then there's the body I still haven't dumped. I need to get that out of the way and dispose of it as fast as humanly possible. Which to prioritize? Which to delay?

There isn't enough time. The second I am observed, I cease to move; static motion and frozen frames likened to my image. Once we meld ourselves into the current of migrating cadets I cast aside my moniker of Aliva and any modicum of autonomy I've ever had. We bunch together and gloss over the ground as one. That frenetic chatter pumps in and out of my ears once more. Officers bunch us together to project their voices. I salute. My feet go shoulder width apart, boots pointed north of the crowd and south of the base.

"Listen up, soldiers! You're all here because you've passed your trainee exams. That means you're full-fledged soldiers, and now you are called upon to serve. We'll have three sections of troops—an advance, mid, and rear guard—into which we will divide you. The advance group will set forth to deter the titans from progressing further into Trost! The middle group will shuttle supplies and communications between the advance and the rear! And the rear guard shall protect the citizens as they evacuate! Clear?"

The voices of the cadets rise up in unison. "Sir yes sir!"

I clack my heels silently, drawing them together, searing the space between them into nonexistence like a book firmly closed. I barely notice the boy next to me as his shoulders droop with relief. "It's just like the drill," he whispers, eliciting a few neighboring nods.

Yet it is nothing like the drills, or the exams, or the readings, or the courses. Nothing will prepare these people for the sight of real titans. Only those who witnessed Shiganshina's fall are even remotely braced for the sheer monstrosity of their visage; and yet none of these cadets, not even the survivors of the fall, have been forced to charge a titan to save those who flee.

A faint, niggling voice in the back of my head twinges to life. None of these cadets except you, it says. Which, I guess, is true to an extent. But that kind of idiotic, thoughtless, reckless behavior can't exactly brace me properly for what's about to ensue. Not unless I choose to be as foolish as I was then.

I run my thumb underneath the nail on my pointer finger, scraping dirt and blood out from underneath. A shaggy strand of blond hair comes out with it. I frown.

Mina's still-breathing body. Hannes's cooling corpse.

Armin nudges my shoulder. "I'm going to find Eren and Mikasa," he tells me, leaning in slightly to be heard over the conversations swelling around us. "We should stick together."

"I'll stay here in case they come through this section."

He nods, then departs.

I watch him go with dread and anxiousness pooling in my guts. No one will stick together. We'll be assigned separate corners of Trost, where we'll fight and where most of us will die.

I clench my hand into a tight fist, squeezing out the space between my palm and my fingers like pulped oranges, letting the fruit's juice leak in sticky saccharine drizzles down my wrist and onto the pavement. I have to decide.

When I climbed trees in the orchard, there came a moment when I had to gauge how far up I could continue to go with the olives I'd collected in my hand. Put a bitter one in my mouth; let my tongue probe the olive into the pocket of my cheek; then I'll climb an extra branch or two. Is it the quantity of the harvest, the length of the climb, that matters most? Or the quality of the individual olives selected, plucked with deliberation, handled as exclusive products too precious to be handled by the farmers?

Quantity. Quality. Mina's life, or the possibility of Eren failing to awaken the Attack Titan? Hannes's corpse successfully disposed of, or maintaining my post to help save fellow cadets from titans that lunge at their naive backs?

I am becoming my mother.

Here I am, weighing out the merit in saving one person over another. I am playing God. Who lives. Who dies. Will the dead curse me, while the living revere me? Will the freshly turned graves churn and cajole their stories up towards the living, inviting them in, whispering sweet tales of a shore far from here and a woman clad in a cadet's uniform who claims to have killed them off for her greater purpose?

I am assigned a squad with cadets I have never once spoken with. We're supposed to help with supplies. Someone smiles wearily—the leader of our group, how noble of them—and offers to exchange names. I receive theirs. It is my turn. I open my mouth, and imagine a bird flapping out from under my tongue, cawing its way up into the sky to sit on the ledge with broken glass perched above my head. That is where my trigger finger points, after all.

And so God does not answer them.

I break rank in the chaos of soldiers taking to the air. Everyone is watching the skies, nervous to find a cavity in which to navigate their ODM gear. When every chin points up I hit the ground, hunched over, and scurry like a rat between sewage grates. I sprint up the stairs (and then immediately double over to catch my breath before I choke on my own exertion) until I'm back in the meeting room. I pause for a moment. Do I try to erase the evidence? Or is it more suspicious if I do, given that Armin already saw some of it? It's not like Eldia even has advanced forensic science. No one is going to rat me out and lock me away in jail based on fingerprints from a crime scene.

Mind made up, I rush to the corner where I dropped off my dead body. Hannes is still very much there, still very much deceased, which both reassures and irritates me. I shouldn't have killed my mother so soon. It would've been more efficient to gut her and leave her on a rooftop where a titan would find her and start using her ligaments like floss. Now I'm stuck with a chunk of meat the humanoids won't eat. The body is larger than mine. Heavier, too: even though I stripped him of all his ODM gear I doubt I'll be able to swing through the skies while dragging the body on my own. I try to scoop my arms under his armpits and hoist him up, but sure enough, I can tell already by the effort it takes to yank his body even halfway off the ground that I'll need a second pair of hands. I need help.

But who the hell is going to help me dispose of a body?

Someone trustworthy—or at least someone with whom a mutual vow of silence can be reached—who wouldn't waste valuable time questioning me. Someone who wouldn't care about deserting, temporarily. Someone strong.

Someone like Reiner. I kick the corpse back into the corner and hurry to the window. I step out onto the ledge, glass crunching underfoot, and launch myself into the sky.

From what I remember, I'll find the warriors somewhere on the rooftops. They're front rushing just like Eren's squad. Meaning I'll need to dart all the way to the worst of the Titan concentrated areas, by myself, with absolutely no true combat experience. My face twists up in disgust. What the hell am I even doing all of this for? Just to hide a body? It's not like anyone even knows I killed him.

I'm shaking my head a second later. Armin. Stupid smartass no-good Armin, who just had to go snooping where he shouldn't. I groan and fire my cord into a new rooftop, staying my course. If it was anyone else I'd say to hell with this whole body dumping scheme of mine.

Grumbling to myself, I all but jolt when the first titan saunters into view. It's a smaller one, almost human-sized, closer to a person and a half tall. It's got tawny eyes and a dopey-looking expression. Something between bliss and sheer idiocracy. Our eyes meet and the thing lifts a chubby-fingered hand up to the sky, like it wishes to pluck me out from between the clouds and shillings. The reality of what I'm attempting to do hits me in dizzying strokes of pulsing lights. I can feel my body itching to retreat. Every logical part of my body wants to turn and head back the way I came, because it's near-suicidal to keep going forward when larger, faster, nastier titans are waiting for me.

My instinct is one of self-preservation. The little girl who first rose up in the forest and vowed to protect this world from its own future is not the same as me. I care more about the select few—and infinitely less about the rest. The grubby titan beneath me pauses, like it is shocked by the indifference and detachment of my thoughts and loyalties. I scowl at it in turn. Behind me are hundreds of people clambering over one another to escape Trost with their lives, depending on people like me to keep them safe. Since when did that matter? Since when was it decided that, instead of doing it themselves, we would do it instead? Why must I be the one to surge forward? Why, when I know that the next few years are going to torture and destroy my sense of self? When I know it would be easier to drop my sense of false bravado and turn back to desert the ranks of troops for good?

By the time I've got half a mind to backtrack and leave Trost with everyone else, I've already passed the little titan. A better soldier would've doubled back to gouge out its nape.

A better soldier would've been assigned out here in the first place, like Eren and Armin. And the warriors.

I change paths mid-air. A wild, stupid idea strikes me just then: why not just…bring the titan to the body? The one I passed is small enough. And we're still relatively near the tower. If I could drop the corpse out the window, and trick the titan into lunging for me only to bite off Hannes's head or something…

I swear under my breath, stop, and turn around.

I'm an idiot for doing this. If any of the other soldiers were to see what I was doing, I've no doubt I'd be killed on the spot. What kind of soldier drags a titan back near the base? Certainly not one worth keeping alive.

I dip my belts low, soaring as close and slowly as I dare. Sure enough, the titan rivets its focus back on me as I fly over its head again. I try to stick to slim alleys, guiding my carnivorous garbage disposal through channels where other titans aren't likely to appear and surprise me. Staying low and keeping my gear speed down to conserve air canister compression and diminish noise pollution help me remain relatively under the radar. I don't see any other soldiers, at least. The longer I spend in the titan's proximity, the more confident in my scheme I feel. Enough so that when I spy the spire slapped on top of my target building, I double back to shred the calves of the titan. Its mouth plops open in grunted surprise as the blood sprays out and it collapses. I return to its front, reminding it that I exist.

"How'd that feel, hm? Not so nice?" The stupefied creature starts crawling forward, even as steam funnels up from each of its mangled legs.

I take my eyes off of the titan only long enough to fire my cable up towards the broken window. When I look back, the right leg has almost recovered half of the original damage. The left is taking longer; I must have irregular depth problems when striking. Not that it even matters right now.

I yank the trigger to recoil the cable and in a second I'm airborne again, zipping up to the window. I've a split second to fire my other wire towards the gap in the wall and release the old one, so that in one continuous stream of motion I've barreled straight into the room. My boot smacks the edge of the table—I hiss and go tumbling, the unexpected contact massacring what could've been a simple landing. My foot hurts like crazy, smarting with a fire that licks its way up from the top of the shoe to the bulb of my ankle. "Fuckfuckfuck," I growl, pushing off the ground and hobbling agitatedly to Hannes. This time I'm less amiable, more aggressive; I fire one wire to hook securely into his ribcage and hobble over to the window before aiming for an adjacent rooftop.

"Okay, buddy," I huff, not entirely sure if I'm talking more to the cannibal shuffling towards me on its knees or the corpse I'm towing around by the ribs behind me. "This better be an easy trip, got it?"

When the wires pull taunt, my hips feel like they're pressed against a sheet of metal. I make it out of the building easily, but Hannes's body crunches through the window in a way that makes me wonder how sturdy his spine is. It drops like a stone and the weight I feel makes me wince; I don't have the kind of strength to put up with this midair.

So I do the easy thing and go to release the body—only the hook doesn't come out. Hannes splats on the ground with a weirdly wet thwack, and I can feel the friction and tension in my coiling wires draw tight on either side of my hips. Gears whirr in mechanic frenzy, like they're screaming at me for trying to do something so blatantly stupid.

At this point I've forgotten entirely about the titan: as long as I can land without shattering every bone in my lower body, that's all that matters. A stitch flares up in my stomach from all the straining and I drop further, swearing and abandoning my free wire entirely. It releases and I'm thrust into a dizzying free fall as I twist around and maneuver my revised shot for a lower, safer hold.

I've just barely embedded the hook when the titan I lured crawls into view, hungry and haphazardly progressing towards me. It has one leg fully healed, the other halfway done, and those disgustingly chubby hands outstretched in poor imitation of a baby's mannerisms.

I hit the switch to start reeling in the wire stuck in Hannes like mad, gritting my teeth against the heated push and pull of my body. Instinctual adrenaline starts pumping in tandem with my erratic pulse, slicking the back of my neck with anxious sweat as everything starts to collide together.

I watch the titan bend its knees—

open its mouth—

stretch its hands, dig its heels into the stone—

and then there's me, in the way, stumbling onto the street and failing to launch up in time as electric pain shoots white-hot up from the foot that suddenly can't support my body—

I hit the ground cheek first, hard enough to bruise—

the body behind me whirrs closer—

and just before I get caught in that mouth, corpse and all, a lancing pain jolts into my bad ankle and yanks me out of the way. Teeth snap shut and cooling blood gushes out of the gaps in the Titan's gums, spraying all over me, making it hard to tell where my wounds start and where my mother's end. I go tumbling end over end down the street while the titan munches on its prize, oblivious for the moment that the body it crunches into bone meal was already very much dead.

I groan, disoriented from tumbling around like a flung rock. I open my eyes, only to feel them stinging from Hannes's blood. I wipe them as best as I can with my dingy sleeve before blinking and squinting to assess the damage.

My right cable is toast. I can see where the wire severed, thanks to the titan's teeth. My left one is still fine, hooked into the last wall I fired it into. Gingerly I reach to recall it, in case I need to fire it and get out quickly. There is a feeding titan sharing space in the street with me, after all.

I dig my heels into the ground to sit up, only to cry out in pain. The lower half of my left leg is not happy. It's hard to see with the boot and the pants covering so much, but I can clearly see the place where an ODM hook punctured my lower shin. If I try to shift my boot, I can feel the foot press against the shoe as if it's grown too large to be contained. Broken, fractured, or strained. In any case, useless.

"Aliva!" My head snaps up to the rooftops where Marco waves. "Are you okay?"

I grimace as I try to shift my foot again before deciding it's been effectively put out of commission. "Fine. Just a little—"

My own words are swallowed up by the sound of metal slicing through the air. In just a split moment, the titan that was slaking itself silly on Hannes's remains a second ago collapses over the lower half of the body it'd been working its way down towards. The severed nape slaps onto the ground a second later, oozing blood and fatty flesh. The attacker shakes his blades off and straightens up. Reiner scans my face, my gear, the leg I've left strewn to the side.

I blink. He blinks. It strikes me as funny, then, that we're doing exactly what we ought to be: taking down titans and saving fellow humans. And yet I know what his partner, perched on the roof next to Marlo, has done. And judging by the way he's regarding me, perhaps he knows what I've done too. He walks over and kneels by my leg, examining the damage. With his head bent down over my boot and his voice low, his voice sinks down to the stone when he speaks. "What were you thinking?"

I shrug flippantly, turning my head away. I don't want to watch him prod the exposed wound. "I was trying to clean up a mess."

"Mess is an understatement."

"Mm."

I feel the pain trickle back in through the adrenaline as his fingers ghost over the wound. The action has come to a grinding halt; all my body can do now is fend off the agony I'm doomed to experience so long as my nervous system continues to remain alert. "I'm going to pull it out."

I nod, then stop and scowl. "Who skewered me, anyways?"

Perfectly timed boots thump to the ground next to me. "I did," Annie says, peering down the length of her nose at me.

"Bitch."

If I wasn't wincing so hard from Reiner pulling the hook out, I could've sworn that Annie smiled. "You're welcome."

I gasp when the hook slides back up and finally pulls its fangs out of my leg. Reiner takes his blade down to cut a strip of cloth from his shirt, ripping it stoutly before using the fabric to dress the wound. I can't help but study the fine blond hairs trickling down from his exposed belly button to his waistband. It's a nice distraction from the agony thawing in my leg.

When he's finished, Reiner stands and offers me a hand. His, at least, has minimal gore caking the exposed skin. Mine is colder than his. I let him hoist me to my feet, though I place all my weight on my right leg.

From the rooftops, Marco cups his hands around his mouth to channel the sound better. "How is she? You should get up here before another one walks by!"

Bertholdt, I notice, hadn't said anything.

Annie eyes me skeptically as Reiner begins to extend his hand again, like he's perfectly content with supporting me all the way up to the roof. "Call it quits." I turn to Annie, surprised by the ice in her tone. She's blunt, and frankly, she's not wrong. It's a clinical conclusion to reach after assessing the damage. But I think of the titan's rank gums, and the uvula that dangled just beyond my fingertips, and I shake my head. "I'm fine. I don't need a leg to use my gear."

"Your gear is broken, Aliva."

"I've got a spare." Her eyes narrow just a smidge, evaluating my claims despite her irritation. Distantly, I wonder why she's still pushing for me to call it quits. There's no love lost between us. I tilt my head over to the other side of the street, where the baby-like titan and the soldier's exposed legs lie. "I took one just in case."

Annie doesn't get to answer, because another titan—this one far larger—creeps into view at the far end of the street. This one has a jagged grin cutting all the way up to its cheekbones. Reiner and Annie take note at the same time I do, with both warriors firing hooks into the roof above us and launching up to safety. I fire my good hook up to join them, fumbling my landing before Marco reaches my side to stabilize me.

"Goodness, Aliva," he says, staring down at the makeshift bandage as he throws my arm over his shoulders. "Let's get you back to the base. What even happened? Where's your squad?"

"Got separated," I say. It's not exactly a lie. I paint my features into grim exhaustion. As the rush from earlier leaves my body in droves, I feel my shoulders shake. The eyes of that titan, locked onto me, stay drilled into the corners of my periphery. "I was trying to help a soldier. He seemed wounded, but he was too heavy to move on my own…"

I say all of this while looking directly at the warriors, daring one of them to challenge me, to make conclusions of their own, to judge me as they will. Look, my gaze says. I know what you've done. You know what I've done. We are not so different after all—look how tragic our responsibilities can be.

Marco smiles sympathetically. "You did everything you could. I'm just glad we got here in time."

Me too.

The surprise of that realization hits me belatedly. By the time my eyes have blown themselves wide at the true limitations of my personhood, the sheer fragility of my life, another thought has seized me in full. "You're going to the front," I say, and Marco nods.

"Yes…is that where your squad is?"

"Take me there."

Annie scowls. Bertholdt opens his mouth, eyebrows bending towards his nose, as Reiner speaks up. "We can't. It's safer for you to stay here."

"But we can pass a message to your team," Marco chimes in. "Who's your squad leader?" I bristle at the question. I can't even think of a plausible name to throw out into the air. I was too busy trying to figure out how to work my way back into the meeting room to even bother with paying attention to everyone's assignments. "…Or your squadron number?" Marco adds after I stay silent for a bit too long.

"No, you're right. I'll head back. My group should be supplying anyways." I wrangle myself out from Marco's support, practically hopping to put some distance between us. "Go on ahead. Everyone else needs you."

I'm eager to send them off, shooing the squad away with promises of medical treatment I'm not inclined to seek. To sell my story, I shuffle down the roof towards the base like I don't care whether or not they actually leave. Only once I draw near to the gutter do I pause and look over my shoulder to watch them head off to where they're stationed, probably. I wait until they're specks rapidly shrinking before I steel myself for what I need to do. When my shoulders shift, it's to reorient my body off in the distance. I pick the way forward at an opposite tilt from the warriors and Marco; if this unfolds anything like the story I knew, then there's no true point staying with their squad. They won't find Eren's group in time.

Maybe I will.

I steel myself, and raise my left trigger to aim and fire.

"I wondered if you would actually do it." Annie materializes practically out of nowhere, sliding into view where she was crouched in a window ledge underneath the lip of the roof. "You've never struck me as someone that would frantically rush to your death. Yet here you are," she drawls, "chasing it down."

"I'm surprised you're still here. Cautioning someone to safety when she knows your secrets isn't like you at all, Annie."

She tilts her head, hair catching in the sun, lips curled into a thin sneer. "You know me so well." I toss my hands up and shrug, placating and surrendering all in one motion. Annie exhales and juts her chin off towards where the vanguard is. "Well? Why?"

I swallow. If I follow where she looks, somewhere beyond that, I'll see the person I'm looking for. There isn't a lot of time. It's possible that, even if I were in pristine condition, my antics with Hannes might've delayed me too much to make it before Eren's squad gets ambushed by titans. It doesn't feel like a decision. Not really. "It's Mina," I confess. My voice feels soft and grave. Like a freshly churned burial mound. "I have to save her."

We stand there in silence. "You love her."

"Do I?"

When Annie looks at me, I wonder, what does she see? "Yes. You do." Suddenly I'm thinking of the way she's been spending her time with Hitch. Mina and Hitch feel so similar, in all their vibrant hues and shimmering smiles.

"Why are you still here?" My brows crinkle in wary confusion.

She sighs, decomposing, coiled then uncoiled. A mountain lion stretched out in a patch of sunlight. "Maybe I'm just looking to collect a favor."

"I already owe you one."

She tosses a look over her shoulder, scathing without an ounce of venom. "A real favor. I want you in my debt, Aliva."

When Annie starts walking towards the edge of the roof, I follow without a second thought. It's as if our bodies have reached a mutual agreement. That doesn't stop me from pressing the issue; this side of Annie is fascinating to me. "What a weird thing to want. Of all the people you could've selected…" I trail off as she fires one of her hooks into an adjacent building.

"I know you'll pay your debts. That's all."

"Ah," I say, though I don't really get her reason. "Thanks."

This time, when she looks at me, I see all of her sharpened skills. A warrior once more. "Hold off on that until we get there."

I nod. Annie steps off the ledge, and then she's gone. I fire my single hook towards where she planted her first, only I shoot mine into the roof itself. I can't go as fast as Annie–I've got to run along the rooftops and fire one shot at a time–but it works out nicely in that she can survey ahead and adjust our route to avoid any titans. We do run into two, which she makes quick work of, while I remain unhelpfully rooted to the rooftops. The pain in my leg makes it hard to breathe but our pace and efficiency makes me hopeful. Flashes of her death in the show flicker up to the surface of my memories. I can't remember exactly how it happens. But I know that it'll be today. It'll be now. If we don't get there in time…

I hear them before I see them.

The furthest reaches of the middle guard has collapsed and blended into the vanguard. Garrison troops lay in various states of consumption, stuffed into the jaws of mindless beasts. I can hear them wailing in agony, screaming for help or for parents they'll never see again. Annie ignores them. The degree to which she remains unfazed makes me wonder if she even heard those cries at all. I bend my head down and catch the sight of a garrison troop crawling away from a titan. Both of her legs are gone, severed at the thigh. Blood trails in her wake like snail slime. She looks up just as I vanish from the rooftop.

We cross streets, adjusting our trajectory so that we're not pushing further into the mess. The titans have already seeped farther into Trost than anyone likely accounted for; no doubt they'll make contact with the supply teams shortly. I look over my shoulder to try and gauge how far out we've come.

That's when I see it: an abnormal titan slamming into a building, various soldiers springing away from it. I stumble to a halt. "Annie! Over there!"

She follows where I point, and wordlessly nods. Sweat pools under my armpits as I try my best to travel further, faster. I vaguely remember an abnormal titan being the one that ambushes Eren's squadron initially, even though I can't think around my worried haze long enough to recall which member of the team it attacks. I see the various titans drawing towards the group like ants scurrying to a hill, drawn by the human concentration in the area. Coming from the opposite direction with the buildings angled in our favor it's easy to see the titans around the corners, but as I notice Eren pop into my line of sight, I remember all too well how impossible it would be for anyone coming from his angle to see what lurks just out of sight.

"EREN! There's another one below!" I watch a soldier on his team shout a warning all too late. The titan below clamps its mouth shut. Blood gushes out as Eren tumbles, one leg shy of avoiding the titan entirely. He goes down hard, striking the rooftop and laying prone against it.

Annie and I rush through the air. I don't know if he sees up before his head droops down as he succumbs to unconsciousness. I'm sure, though, that the other cadets don't see us, because after shaking off their shock they've launched into the air to engage another titan. Three of them leave behind a statuesque Armin, whose eyes look glazed over even from here.

I'm close enough to identify the individuals that have jumped, or at least sort them. Everything around me fades into white noise as I see her, soaring down, a determined set to her mouth.

"Mina," I whisper, and then the panic sets in. "MINA! WATCH OUT!"

She looks up too late. The titan swats its arm lazily at the three cables jutting out of its hide, catching Mina's against its arm. I watch as she gets whipped around, yelping in surprise, dragged by the cable until she collides with a building and slides to the ground in a heap.

"Mina!" I cry out, and all thoughts leave my head as I fire my one good cable towards where she is. The titan seizes the other two cadets in its hands, though it eyes Annie and I as we approach. We'll have to get past the titan in order to get to Mina. I breeze by Armin, who doesn't even notice the two new titans rumbling ever-near. Annie fires a shot down against the titan's unprotected nape and drops down below as I land on the nearest rooftop, retracting my wire and rushing to aim again. Another titan has crawled its way over to Mina, stooping down to stare at her. I scream Mina's name over and over again, trying to rouse her, as the titan reaches down to pluck her off the ground. Finally her eyes go wide and she shrieks, writhing against the titan's hold. My hook embeds itself securely and I kick off of the roof with my left leg, feeling dizzy and sick to my stomach all at once at the agonized response flaring up in my body.

"H-help," Mina sobs, head tilted up towards me, eyes wide with fear and desperate hope.

Annie cuts deep into the other titan's arm, but the body it drops has been crushed beyond salvation. It uses its free hand to swipe at her but she rounds her way back to its other side, navigating once more towards the nape.

I land like thunder against the ground in front of Mina, who's still too shocked and disoriented to stand. The blade she holds shakes so badly I fear she's going to drop it. "Aliva!" Then she bursts into tears. "Eren…and Thomas…and Milieus…and now Nack…"

"Focus," I cut in, recoiling my cable while eyeing Annie's progress. From the way she's neglected the other cadet entirely, and from the red rouge staining the titan's exaggerated grin, I doubt there's anything left to save there either. "Can you fire?"

I try to stand my full height, swords brandished against the titan reaching my way. Putting weight on my wounded leg feels impossible. I want Mina to look elsewhere, to concentrate on the sturdiness of my voice, so that she doesn't notice the state I'm in and lose that precious, fragile hope. Mina groans and her head lolls to the side. Her hand shakes harder as she clamps down on the sword's hilt. "I…don't feel good…" A sob chokes out of her throat and she gasps for air. "We're gonna die–"

The titan in front of us scowls and finally makes its move, shooting its arm forward to pluck us from the street. I adjust my hold on the blade and ram it, spear-like, right into the titan's outstretched palm. I feel those thick fingers clamp around me despite me shoving the blade as far into it as I can manage with my current strength. Pushing back and recoiling against the fingers doesn't help; by the time I've sensed them curling in to trap me, I'm already stuck. I kick my good leg to try and get it stuck in the palm so I can use more of my dwindling strength to kick out of its grasp, but I can't seem to get my good leg up high enough. The titan doubles down on its hold, sitting back on its haunches in order to grip me with both hands. I can hear Mina screeching, but I don't know what she's saying. Above me a tall, bearded titan grabs Armin and dangles him over his open mouth. Annie moves in slow motion, lined up for the titan's nape and thrusting the first of her two blades into its skin. And–

I see Eren, mid-motion, ODM gear carrying him through the sky. He and I watch each other. I can't see his expression well with all the grime obscuring his face, but I know that he sees me and my futile struggle. I open my mouth as if to ask for something, except I don't know what. Save me? Save Mina?

The torrid exhale swamps my senses as the titan licks its lips and prepares to nest my head between them. And it dawns on me, then, that it wouldn't have mattered if I'd said anything. Eren had already turned his head away and adjusted his path to rescue Armin.

I close my eyes.

ODM gear whizzed by me, and a second later, the grip on my midsection eases. "Hurry!" Mina pants, her sword bloodied after slashing through the tendons in one of the titan's wrists. I struggle with renewed vigor, managing to yank my free arm out of the titan's hold. I try pushing against the top finger to squirm out further, but it doesn't even budge. "Here," Mina says, reaching to offer me her blade, "use this!"

I turn towards her as best as I'm able, shaking my head as I continue to struggle out of its hold. "No, you should…"

It all happens so fast.

Mina, leaning towards me with her blade extended, doesn't see the way the titan leans forward. It falls faster than normal by tipping over its balance without using its appendages to brace the downward motion. I see it and I reach to push her away, to propel her from my side, but the distance closes too soon. Her eyes sparkle in the light of the apocalypse. Her lips part to speak to me. The titan's teeth cast a shadow over her dark hair, done in a single braid now disheveled from her fall, secured with the single blue ribbon I didn't take with me.

Mina Carolina's head is bitten off not even two feet from my eyes.

A/N: Sorry about how long it's been since I last uploaded. I don't reallllly want to get into it all so basically just a lot has happened and I haven't had all that much time to work on writing. Here is an extra-long chapter to (hopefully) appease my dear readers.

Also, I know it's kind of far into the story to beg for reviews and interactions, but if you enjoy the work, let me know/spread the word! I adore hearing about how it's being received.

Anyways, I was dreading getting to this point, but it had to be done...rip :(