Checking his gun, Eren pulls his mask down around his neck before heading up the stairs. Counting the number of bodies Mikasa left in her wake, he looks back at her as she holds her swords up. He nods to her, giving her a thumbs-up. Mikasa's eyes light up briefly, smirking.

She holds her hand up, hoping he'll high-five her. Eren was about to give her one before freezing and looking up. Narrowing his eyes, he raises his gun, holding the barrel near his head as he walks the rest of the way up the stairs, leaving Mikasa hanging in the middle of the stairwell.

CRASH!

Eren rushes up the stairs and follows his ear to a door at the end of the aisle with a sign that says 'Manager's Office'. Kicking the door open, he steps into a small office with several baby pictures on the cluttered desk. The lantern illuminates the room as Eren's gaze lands on the shattered window. Running to the shattered window, he peeks through to see someone on the first floor running for his life.

The shadowy figure looks over his shoulder as he runs across the street and almost gets clipped by a passing car. The shadowy figure spots Eren peering at him from the window and quickly flips him off. He leaps onto the back of a pickup truck and holds on tightly as it drives off.

"Was that Diaz?" he asks aloud.

"Help us?" a muffled voice speaks. "Please, help us!"

Thud, thud, thud.

Eren turns and runs to the pounding sounds on the wall. Finding the source to come from behind a bookshelf, he quickly pulls it forward and causes it to fall flat on the front. Finding a red door with a lock, he aims at the lock.

BANG!

Ripping the door open, his green eyes widen in horror at the sight before him.

Thirteen women in skimpy bikinis piled in a small room with several trash cans of food with flies circling them. A small bulb above them lights up the small prison room and shows the girls crying their mascara off and immediately rushing out of the room. One of the girls, no older than nineteen, crawls on her knees toward the exit before one of the girls moves over to help her up.

"Please don't hurt us," the first woman begs. "Please, we can't take it anymore. No more, please, don't hurt us!"

Eren steps back. "I'm not going to hurt you." His grip around the pistol tightens. "What did they do to you?"

"Please... please, please, I want to go home, please!"

Mikasa arrives in the room, her eyes widening as she presses her back to the wall. She winces and seals her eyes shut like she is trying not to get water in her eyes. A few seconds later, Gabriel runs up the stairs and makes it into the room.

"Oh my god," the undercover officer gasps. "I swear, I didn't know. I thought Diaz had a call girl up here." He covers his mouth. "God almighty." He pulls out his walkie-talkie and switches channels. "Dispatch, come in, Dispatch, this Officer Gabriel Wilde, password 'Stallion', I'm at Ratt's Pizza Joint and I need an ambulance and anyone you can send. I say again, I need assistance; I think we uncovered a string of kidnapped girls."

A voice comes through seconds later. "Officer Wilde, Password 'Stallion' has been approved and we're sending everyone you got. We already got officers en route to Ratt's Pizza Joint due to several calls about noise complaints and gunshots. They'll arrive there shortly."

"Thank you, dispatch." Gabriel tucks his walkie-talkie away. "Eren, Mikasa, did you two cause all the damage out there?"

"Focus on the girls," Eren orders.

"Right." Gabriel quickly attends to the girls and starts by removing his jacket and putting it over them. "Where's Diaz? Did you kill him?"

"No, he jumped out of the window and took off."

"Did he see your face?"

"I hope so," Eren says, "because I want him to know the Attack Titan is coming after him."

"That's not going to happen if you're still here. Leave, or else I'll have no choice but to arrest you for the murder of these men, go."

Eren was about to say something when Mikasa grabbed and threw him over her shoulder. "Mikasa, put me down! Stop!"

"We're leaving, Eren." Mikasa carefully turns her body so she doesn't accidentally cause Eren's head to strike the wall.

"Put me down; I'm not your little brother! Stop babying me!"

Without wasting any time, Mikasa simply carries Eren down the stairs and back to their car. Reluctantly, Eren gets in the driver's seat and takes off just as the police arrive several seconds later.

Eren and Mikasa's Apartment

Limping her way to the couch (dropping her swords and knives along the way), Mikasa sinks into the couch and winces. She removes her jacket and puts a hand on her bulletproof vest. She removes it, causing two bullet caps to fall in her lap. Swatting them away like flies, she removes her shirt and looks at her stomach. While the bulletproof vest did its job in protecting her from three bullets, they left behind three large bruises; two in her stomach and one in her sternum. She adjusts her sitting to get more comfy before feeling something poking into her from her pocket. She removes a leftover knife from the pocket and tosses it to the carpeted floor.

"That was a human trafficking operation," Eren announces as he comes out of the bathroom, holding a first-aid kit. He takes out a pair of scissors and stitches to work before noticing the only injury she has are about three impact bruises. He puts his tools back in the kit before heading to the freezer. He searches around for a bit before pulling out a frozen bag of peas and tossing it to her.

"Was that Armin's plan?" She applies the frozen bag of peas to her bruises.

Eren grabs two bottles of water from the fridge and takes them with him to the couch. Mikasa takes the water bottle and gulps it down greedily like a man wandering through the desert for four days. Sighing heavily, she looks at Eren while smacking her lips.

"We should've stayed behind to save the girls," Eren says, "I don't trust those girls in the hands of these lazy police officers."

"Armin will make sure they're taken care of."

"Those poor girls."

Mikasa looks ahead. "I'm sure this was part of Armin's plan. I'm sure..."

"I'm going to call him right now and ask him." Without missing a beat, he takes out his phone and dials up his friend. Waiting patiently, he sighs heavily upon hearing Armin pick up.

"I assume you're calling me about the girls from the pizza joint."

Eren nods. "Right, Armin. So, was that your plan? Was it your plan to have us free the girls?"

"I didn't know about them being there. I knew that there was information on human trafficking at the pizza joint but I had no knowledge of the girls. Our insideman should've told us this but he said he didn't know, which means... these girls must've just been moved there. Thirteen girls."

"Almost sold into human trafficking." Eren clenches his hands. "I can't stand by this anymore, Armin. I knew that the Richter Crime Family was associated with human trafficking but to see it... to actually see it..."

"I know what you're going to say. How is Mikasa feeling?"

Eren looks at Mikasa, whose face remains stoic. "Well, you know her; she's not one to wear her emotions on her sleeve, not like me. But I'm sure-"

"I'm pissed," she interrupts, her neutral face slightly morphing into an angry one. "Those poor girls. That could've been me when I was younger."

"And as long as Richter is still up and operational, there will be other girls like that." Eren clenches his hands around the phone. "Armin, I'm going to kill Wal Ricther. I'm going to fucking kill him and I won't show him any mercy. They don't get to abduct girls and get away with it."

"Eren..."

"No, Armin, you are not going to talk me out of this. I will destroy this entire world before I roll over and let someone like Wald Richter live after this. I'm going to march down to the police station and I'm going to kill him in his cell."

"No, Eren, I'm afraid that can't happen. If you do, then Diaz going to take over."

Eren pauses. "Diaz?"

"Yeah, Wald Richter left Diaz in charge and Gabriel said Diaz got away at the pizza joint. He knows there's a vigilante. I was hoping you would be able to take him out but, I guess you guys are still rusty. By the way, I heard about all the bodies piled up at the pizza joint; excellent work as always."

"We'll kill Richter and Diaz."

"And then both men will be replaced. You want to take down an organization, you can't just kill one man. You gotta take out their resources, their men, and any chance that the organization could resurrect. You need to attack them smart, ren. Then again, attacking smart has never been your strong suit."

"Uh, what are you talking about? I'm the one with the title 'Attack Titan', not you." He looks at Mikasa. "And Mikasa here is called the 'Red Scarf' for a reason."

"I'm not going to stop you from killing Richter and Diaz," Armin explains. "I'm going to help you but you have to do it the smart way. First, go after the targets I gave you, and then once I've used the police to weaken the Richter Crime Family, destroyed their pillars and everything keeping them alive, then you can kill Wald Ricther. But if I were you, my first priority would be killing Diaz. The plan was to have you kill Diaz so the rest of the crime family would be in disarray and chaos but even someone like the Attack Titan and Red Scarf are fallible. However, this raid on the pizza joint was a big win in our favor. This means that we have more concrete information and evidence to use against Richter. Focus on the targets on the thumb drive, kill Diaz, and then when the time is right, kill Wald Ricther. Patience, Eren, patience."

Mikasa snatches the phone. "I'll make sure he is a patient, Armin, one way or another."

"I knew I could count on you, Mikasa. Until then, keep your head down."

Armin hangs up.

Mikasa returns the phone. "Did Diaz see your face?"

Eren takes his phone back. "I'm not sure. It was dark and he was running away and he was a good distance away."

Mikasa gulps down more water. "I disabled the security cameras so there is no way he could know it was us."

"Hopefully, he'll think we're nothing more than a bunch of rival gangsters."

"Eren, did you see the girls?" Mikasa takes another mouthful of water. "When you..." She pretends to bite her hand.

Eren shakes his head. "No, I didn't."

"What did you see exactly?"

Eren looks ahead. "Just enough for us to win but not enough to paint a mental picture. Besides, I stopped after I saw the conclusion of the battle." He turns to her and puts a hand on her shoulder. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"I am. Are you going to use your ability again?"

"When the time is right."

"Is now a good time?"

Eren smirks. He bites his hand and the glint in his green eyes returns. "Huh, interesting."

"What did you see?"

"A clothing store."

Mikasa cocks her head. "What?"

"We're going shopping tomorrow." He pulls out his M1911. "This is a piece of shit that keeps jamming on me. I need something better, something with more bullets, more firepower." He dissembles the pistol without looking and drops the parts on the coffee table.

"And the clothing store?"

"We'll find out in the morning."

Hours later, when they climb into bed, they fall asleep after an hour of tossing and turning. The image of the girls crawling out of the locked room flashes across Eren's eyes as he shakes his head, trying to get the vision out. Mikasa grabs her head, trying to block out the internal screaming from a memory, a not-too-distant memory. From a time when her parents were alive and she was still an innocent girl. That girl lost her innocence when those three pigs killed her parents and almost sold her. She claws at her hands, desperate to get the sounds of her past screaming out of her head but is it all fruitless until Eren reaches over and puts a hand on her temple, gently massaging her.

Mikasa coos into Eren's embrace and while the screams don't vanish completely, it feels better knowing Eren is holding her hand, not letting go.

With Wald

"Mr. Ricther, phone call for you." A police officer hands Wald a cell phone through his cell.

Wald takes the phone and retreats to the far corners of his cell. "How can I help you?"

"They're dead!" a Spaniard accent comes through in German. "Someone broke into our pizza joint in the dead of night and started shooting up the place. All my men are gone, all of them, every single one of them."

Wald's eyes widen. "Diaz, what are you talking about?"

"Ratt's Pizza Joint; we were bringing our shipment in for an 'early tasting' for tomorrow and two people broke into the joint. They shot up the place and killed all my men. I tried to find a way to get our products out of there but the two were coming up the stairs. I panicked and I jumped out of the window and I leaped onto a car. The police got there and took our products away."

Wald's eyes widen more. "Oh my god. Did..." Who broke into my pizza joint? Please, please don't let it be who I think it was. "Did you see who the two people were?"

"No. I snuck a peek when I heard fighting on the second floor but it was too dark to tell. But one of them was a girl with swords."

Wald freezes, his face morphing into panic as the phone slips through his fingers like butter.

Oh no, this is so not good. Not only are Eren and Mikasa going to war with us, but now that they found our products, they're going to want blood. Eren has always been about freedom and after seeing my stash of girls, he's going to hate me for taking away their freedoms. And Mikasa was almost sold into human trafficking as a child so she'll want revenge just as much as Eren does.

Almost robotically, Wald picks up his phone and returns it to his ear. "Diaz, I want you to put a bounty up."

"W-what?"

"I need you to put a bounty up, right now."

"Y-yes sir, how much."

"Fifty thousand gold coins."

"Sir?" Diaz's voice trembles through the phone. "Fifty thousand gold coins?"

"Yes."

"Okay. Uh, distribution?"

"Organization-wide."

"Yes sir."

"I trust you know how to lead my men, right?"

"Yes, sir."

And with that, Wald hangs up and returns the phone to the officer. Without waiting another second, he sits on his bed and sighs heavily, endless possibilities flooding his mind a million miles an hour.

Big Ratt's Arcade

Killing time as there is nothing else to do, Gene and Randolph quickly finish up their round of the Terminator arcade game. Putting the guns back in place, they high-five before taking a sip of beer.

Ring, ring.

The two men take out their phones and check their messages.

They both flinch.

"Holy shit," Gene utters.

Randolph smiles. "Looks like it's early payday for us."

TARGETS: EREN JAEGER AND MIKASA ACKERMANN

REWARD: 50,000 GOLD COINS

DISTRIBUTION: THE RICHTER CRIME FAMILY

NOTE: REWARD WILL BE REWARDED WHEN BOTH TARGETS ARE DEAD NO HALFSIES ON THIS DEAL JACKASSES