Between two worlds

by Angie296

Mizuki ends up inside the walls without remembering where she came from. All she knows is that she does not belong to that world, and that she wants to return home. To do so, she has no choice but to rely on the Survey Corps, and on her golden eyes capable of tinging the color of blood, inherited from her father, the last descendant of the Uchiha clan. Levi X OC

6. Chapter 5

Capitolo 5: Until the day I die, I'll spill my heart for you - part 2

Story of the year - Until the day I die

.

The sky unfolded over the men galloping across the verdant plain, advancing as one body. Without visible boundaries, vast, tantalizing, and laden with promises of freedom. Not even the clouds, which had obscured the brilliance of the sun in previous days, dared to interrupt the perfection of that vision. The November sun spread in all directions its rays unable to warm the earth, making the celestial mantle glisten a blindingly clear blue, so intense that it was painful to the eye.

Yet the heads of all the recruits were turned upward.

The superiors knew this, because it happened every time. Within a short time they would reprimand them rudely, ordering them to concentrate on the mission if they didn't want to kick the bucket. But for a while - for a few more minutes - they wanted to allow the kids who still reeked of mother's milk to enjoy that unrepeatable and unique moment. The instant when - having walked through Trost's gates, and left behind a rotten and oppressive society - they would finally discover freedom. Real freedom. The freedom that, one day, they hoped to export with their wings also within the walls.

That feeling of freedom: dizzying; intoxicating; insidious.

They did not intend to remind them - not right away, at least - that beyond it, other surprises, far less pleasant, lurked out there.

One of the recruits, however, was not looking up at the sky; she kept her head upright, her gaze pointed at the horizon, toward a point invisible and meaningless to anyone but her. A straight line that, starting from Trost, stretched forward to another city, abandoned and destroyed by giants and elements; and then crawled past it, past a pristine plain, past a forest in which lay the body of a man with a splinter planted in his belly, past it again, and again, and again, until...

All the way home.

Even when Commander Erwin Smith raised his arm to give the order to split into a fan and give body to the long-distance scouting formation, she kept her gaze fixed in that direction, bending her head slightly to the right.

Even when the formation, as one man, turned for the first time to avoid a giant spotted approaching from the left side, Mizuki's golden eyes did not leave that line drawn by her desire.

All around her, boys with moist eyes and wide-open mouths were getting drunk on the vision of a sky unbounded by any tangible boundary; and then there she was, not caring, and thinking only of bending as far forward as she could with her torso to rewind a little that thread unfurling at her feet, to travel one more mile of those that separated her from the Village.

Never before had she felt more than at that moment the distance that separated her and the rest of the people around her.

She wondered if she would ever be able to fully understand them, and if they would ever be able to overcome the distrust - unconscious, instinctive, repulsive - that she aroused in them.

She, who - at least as far as she believed based on her own memories - was born free; and they, who had always lived in captivity. She, who spoke in future time; and they, who existed in and for the past, passing on the memory of fallen comrades, whose names they very often did not even know.

She averted her attention from the horizon, and turned it to her three comrades, all with their noses turned up. They all had their backs to her, and at the sight of those faceless backs she became confused, the planes of the past and present overlapped, and for a moment she was convinced that galloping with her were not three strangers, but her friends, her protégés, the ones she wished would never set foot outside the walls again, except to return home.

Ronnie - her horse - gave a snort, as if to call his mistress' attention, and Mizuki recoiled with a gasp.

Unnoticed, Finnian peered down at her. He had called her strange in front of Erwin and Levi. But perhaps it was an inappropriate term. More than strange, the young girl was different from the others, from him, and from any other human being he had happened to meet. She didn't have appropriate reactions, she didn't show fear when she should have, or astonishment, or joy, or excitement; everything about her seemed messed up, out of place, and a little incomprehensible.

And then...

What was it, that flash in her eyes?

Finnian sharpened his eyesight. No, they sparkled the same amber color - vaguely tending to gold - as always. The veteran shook his head, focusing back on the valley that stretched out in front of his galloping team.

"Hey! Nelson, Doyle and Holmes! Stop drooling looking at the sky. Taxpayers don't pay us to count clouds! And you, Onizuka: didn't your parents teach you to pay attention to where you're going?"

Henry Holmes, Lucy Doyle, and Charlie Nelson jerked on their respective saddles. "Sir!"

Finnian returned a fleeting glance at the only one among his subordinates who had remained completely unmoved by the spectacle of the sky and the feeling of freedom. She did not respond to his rebuke, nor did she seem in truth to have heard it.

He shook his head again. Fatigue must have gone to his head.

For a moment, and again, he had had the impression that Mizuki's eyes glinted with bloody reflexes.

But such an eventuality was simply impossible.

OOO

The formation advanced toward its destination - an old abandoned fortress chosen as the first foothold in the plan to re-conquer Wall Maria - without incurring any special incidents for the course of the first four hours. After about two hours from the start, they stopped to rest their horses and reorganize their ranks, and then set off again. The recruits looked around at the landscape gliding quietly under the horses' hooves, a little elated and a little frightened by that unnatural calm, as if waiting for an unannounced giant to suddenly appear in their path.

They veered direction five or six times, and, as it was reported by a messenger in charge of passing word, the right wing, in the rear, had engaged in battle with an abnormal. With a death toll of only six, the affected teams brought the situation under control thanks to the efforts of Levi Squad.

They learned the news about the abnormal just before they reached the forest of small trees that stretched for miles horizontally, cutting the shortest route from Trost to their destination in half. There were but two options available to overcome it: go around it by keeping the formation, or cross it in its full extent.

In previous missions, Erwin had opted for the latter, a decision made at the price of multiplying the amount of energy required of his men and lengthening the time needed to reach the fortress by a day. Because of the heavy wagons traveling with them, laden with the material needed for reconstruction and supplies, they moved slowly, and bypassing the forest forced them to detour to reach a ruin where they could spend the night, and then resume the journey the next day. Although the darkness - at least according to Hanje's theories - soothed their natural enemies, at the same time it made it risky to ride on uneven and treacherous ground.

The longer they stayed outside the walls, however, the greater risks they took. So, Erwin decided to try an experiment: they would ride through the woods, and find out how it would go on the way.

"Team! We are about to enter the woods! As you know, this is the most difficult and dangerous passage of the whole scouting, because not even us veterans know how it will turn out. Keep your senses alert and be ready to switch to three-dimensional movement at any time!" barked Finnian, raising his arm to get his subordinates' attention.

"'Yessir!"

The forest was a gamble. Erwin knew it, the captains knew it, and even the clueless recruits placed under their command knew it. The relatively low height of the trees did not preclude a view of the sky and thus of the smoke grenades launched by other squads, but it would have significantly slowed their faculties of maneuver and, consequently, hindered their ability to change direction quickly. This also meant that if they encountered any giants - abnormal or normal - they would have no choice but to engage in battle.

They penetrated the forest.

For the first ten minutes, nothing happened. They advanced undisturbed, accompanied only by the sounds of nature: birds' wings flapping, leaves rustling, unidentified animal calls bouncing among the logs. They lulled themselves into the foolish and naive belief that - perhaps - they would reach the forest exit without any unpleasant surprises.

Soon, however, they had to change their minds.

A heartrending scream rose from an unspecified spot in front of them, sticking in their ears like a thorn. That first cry was echoed by others; even more inhuman, even more heartbreaking.

That indistinct noise, in the distance, of greasy sheets being unrolled... shelled... turned over...

Mizuki's blood froze in her veins, and she suppressed a gasp of vomit.

The plans of present and past blurred again.

She was still on the run, with sensei and her teammates, and behind them Hashina was being eaten. The sense of helplessness crept over her like a snake.

Ronnie, who seemed aware of any carelessness on the part of its mistress and anxious to remedy it, with an annoyed snort lightly pulled the reins. Mizuki jerked, and returned to reality. Mentally, she vowed to offer as a prize a few carrots to her all-too-smart horse if they returned to the walls.

"Captain!" shrieked Charlie, panic running rampant in his shrill voice.

"What do we do?!" echoed Henry desperately.

"SILENCE! I'm listening!" thundered Finnian, calmer than they had seen him in most training sessions: he drew his pistol from its sheath and fired a red smoke into the air. "I don't recall training you to whine like chicks."

In the renewed silence, Mizuki listened as well. Those horrifying sounds were coming from a point slightly offset to the left; in all likelihood, it was the squad positioned on the outermost line of the formation. The characteristic booming noise that foretold the approach or displacement of the giants - who, intent on eating, must have been stationary - could not be heard, so it was impossible to determine their exact number.

"Draw your blades!"

With a fluid gesture, Mizuki carried out the order. She no longer felt fear, and perceived her mind and body tensing up, leaning toward the fight.

"But we didn't hear or see any signal..." stammered Henry, bent over his horse, white as a rag. "What the fuck is the lookout team up to?!"

It is up to that, in all likelihood, it's being devoured right now.

"Maybe something happened, and they couldn't shoot it," Lucy speculated.

Mizuki nodded, even though no one was looking at her. "The most likely hypotheses are two: either the giants are many, or the soldiers encountered some obstacle that caught them by surprise."

Finnian studied his subordinate's concentrated profile for a few moments. "Onizuka, leave your horse with Nelson and go take a look!"

Mizuki hesitated for a moment, taken aback that someone like her would be entrusted with such a task; overcoming her hesitation, however, she pulled up her hood and prepared to lift herself off the ground. She operated the device and took flight. Her body was catapulted forward, in the direction of the log on which she had harpooned the grappling hooks; immediately she fired them again, so as to impart fluidity to the movement.

As she was intent on those maneuvers, she heard behind her back the captain's voice rising above the sound of the wind: "Mind you I said a look, Onizuka, not a suicide mission! No fooling around!"

"Count me in!"

"We await your report!"

Mizuki left her own team behind, twirling through the trees.

She was back in less than a minute. "A fourteen-meter class giant heading southwest, it's eating now but will soon notice us. One and a half minutes to rendezvous. No survivors from the team affected by the encounter. And then..."

"Got it! Let's try to avoid it!"

"It's impossible, sir! Up ahead there are several downed logs that make it difficult for the running horses to pass. I saw a couple of animals on the ground, I think the outpost team practically crashed into them, and then they were attacked. That's why they couldn't fire the smoke grenade. We also have to inform those behind us, otherwise we risk getting all stuck there, creating a cap and attracting more giants."

Finnian squinted his eyes for a moment. After that, he cleared his throat and began issuing precise orders in a firm voice, letting his apprehension leak out only in his probably unconscious choice to call them by name. "Charlie, you go and relay the message to Dita's team. Henry, take care of the horses. Lucy and Mizuki, with me. Let's take that son of a bitch down here!"

" Yessir!"

In an instant, the formerly compact team ripped apart: a horse turned abruptly and began to retrace its newly trodden path; three figurines, hovering in the air, sprinted forward, while the fifth recovered awkwardly and with trembling hands the reins of the steeds freed from their occupants.

"There it is!" Mizuki pointed a finger toward the dark figure silhouetted in the trees, offering its back to them, now only a few meters away. It was clear from the position of its arms that it was still intent on ruminating the remains of some of their comrades. Within a short time, however, it would notice them.

"Thank you for the report, Onizuka. I would never have noticed if it weren't for you."

"Half a minute to collision!" Among the four recruits, Lucy seemed to be the only one who kept her cool. Her calm, controlled voice helped at least to quell the incessant pounding in Mizuki's temples.

"Sir, I believe that because of the lay of the land, strategy five is the most appropriate. However, the enemy is too close to the fallen logs, so we need to get it far enough away to gain the necessary maneuvering space. What do you say?"

At that instant, the giant's head snapped in their direction. Again those glassy eyes, devoid of any trace of humanity, or compassion. Again those jaws wide open and smeared with the blood of her comrades. An arm caught between its teeth dangled from its lips, a silent warning of what they were risking, an unequivocal invitation to change course and escape from there as quickly as possible.

"Fifteen seconds!" This time, Lucy's voice sounded less sure. An imperceptible tremor revealed an effort to resist the temptation to give in to that impulse, instilled by survival instinct. Oluo's intuition found full confirmation in that reaction: the scouting and, in particular, the upcoming encounter with the giant represented the girl's baptism of fire.

"I say I didn't know I had become a recruit again and that you were a fucking captain, Onizuka." Despite the ironic tone, Finnian snapped his arm upward, the agreed signal to indicate to stand ready for action. "Strategy number five, I will be the decoy; you Mizuki give the signal when you have enough space. Get ready to fight!"

"'Yessir'!"

Mizuki directed her own trajectory to the right, while her companion did the same on the opposite side; both landed on two branches and stood observing the situation, swords drawn, waiting for an opening. Captain Finnian lunged forward at the same instant as their foe lunged at him; with skillful use of the device he let himself slide almost to the ground, and the giant - with the agility that had so struck Mizuki - bent down to try to catch him. But the man moved faster and, with a jerk, reached upward again, at a safe distance.

"Come here, asshole!"

A few more moments. One more half step forward and we'll have enough room to act.

Finnian moved further away, shifting toward the direction from which they had come, and the giant, with steps that shook the earth and led it away from the fallen logs, followed.

Under the hood, Mizuki's pupils, bathed in red, shrank to a dot. "NOW!"

Mizuki and Lucy triggered the three-dimensional movement and swooped down in the direction of the titan, in the vicinity of whose backside - like a pair of perfectly synchronized ballerinas - they crossed each other's paths, exchanging places. Mizuki, who came from the right, used the force of the fall to plunge her blades, with surgical precision, into the tendon of the giant's left foot. Lucy did likewise on the right side, although her blow did not penetrate deep enough to sever the muscle.

However, the thrust of the huge body forward, straining in a spasmodic attempt to grasp the tiny human being, and the sudden loss of one of the footholds proved enough to throw the giant off balance, and it collapsed to the ground with a frightening roar.

As she carried herself back up to a safe distance, Mizuki caught a glimpse out of the corner of her eye of their captain swooping down on the back of the enemy's head.

From the limbs sprawled on the grass rose a cloud of flanking smoke.

An unexpected surge of pride invaded her heart.

They had won.

Three miserable human beings had triumphed over a monster nearly fifteen meters tall.

The elation, however, lasted only for those brief moments, before her eyes trained to catch the slightest detail darted to the right flank of the clearing. Henry had just finished tying up the last of their horses and turned in the direction of the newly felled giant, his pale face drenched in sweat. He had his back to the forest thicket, and from there ...

Mizuki operated the device, launching herself in her teammate's direction.

"Giant class ten approaching!" shrieked Lucy. "Henry, look out!"

The boy turned around.

"'Get out of the way, you idiot!" Captain Finnian also launched himself in the direction of his underling, but the entire clearing lay between them.

Henry collapsed to the ground. His legs could not support him.

The running giant had now caught up with him.

Mizuki increased the speed of her pacing, swords in her fist.

What if she had thrown them?

Captain Finnian, on behalf of all the taxpayers of the walls, would have talked her ear off. And Levi would have snapped his tongue, tugging at her ears.

She sheathed her blades. She didn't need them. She could not reach the back of the head from that position. And even if she had hit the giant, she still wouldn't have been able to save Henry.

But then he would die. Why wasn't he moving? Why wasn't he running? Why wasn't he fighting?

Until the day I die...

A huge hand reached out in the direction of the slumped boy.

You're not really thinking of offering your heart, I hope.

No, she was not thinking that, nor did she intend to do that. She wasn't thinking it and she didn't mean it, though...

However, he looks so much like...

Her heart stopped beating in her chest for a moment.

"LOKI!"

In a split second, Mizuki glided. From her high position, she hooked the device's grappling hooks to the lowest part of two trees positioned a short distance from the horses, and with the muscles of her abdomen she rotated until she stretched her body parallel to the ground; the recoiling of the cable propelled her toward the ground, to which she came dangerously close, grazing it with her thigh. She stretched her arm out to its full length, gritting her teeth, and struck Henry's chest violently. Plunging all her energy into that gesture, she grabbed him.

She would never be able to lift him, from that height and with the thrust impressed by the rewinding of the cables waning. But the important thing, for the moment, was to get him out of the titan's reach. She dragged him with her for about half a meter and then, with a grunt and taking advantage of the residual movement, she pushed that dead weight outward; she saw him roll for a few meters until he disappeared inside a bush with a cry.

The gesture caused her to lose altitude and speed, and she impacted against the hard ground; she brought her arms to her head to protect it from the impact, and the small pebbles and dry twigs with which the ground was strewn penetrated the flesh of her hands. Fortunately, she unhooked and retracted the grappling hooks before she crashed into the logs and wrapped herself in the cables, thus trapping herself with her own hands. She rolled for a few meters then, as soon as she lost enough speed, stopped by planting her knees and hands in the ground, and stood upright.

The giant, after clasping its hands over the void, had stopped for a second, looking around stupidly.

"Hey! Chubby! I'm here!" shouted Mizuki, in an attempt to get its attention and lead it away from Henry, who, where he lay moaning, was still too close to the enemy. Dangerously close. If she had climbed a tree, in all probability the giant, concentrating on the human being closest at hand, would have attacked him again.

An idea flashed through her mind. Behind her back stood... yes, perhaps it could work.

The titan studied her for a few moments, its mouth dangling. Then, with a roar and unable to resist the call of a succulent little girl flailing up from the ground to get its attention, it threw itself at her, and she immediately turned and began to run away.

"Mizuki! Get up, move!"

"Captain, I have a plan! I'm going to land the son of a bitch, you get ready to shoot it down!"

Mizuki ran a few more meters, the ground shaking beneath her feet with increasing intensity as the giant covered the distance between them. She reached the trench formed by the fallen logs and then, clinging to the overhanging twigs, climbed over one of them. "Come on, you idiot! How slow can you be?!"

The giant increased its pace, stretching its hands toward Mizuki, standing upright on the log.

She waited until there was but a meter separating her and the enemy. Then she let herself slide to the other side of the log, diagonally, and quickly crawled to the left, protecting her head with one arm. The trunk was shaken by a blow and, the next instant, the ground trembled as the body of the giant, who in the heat of running had stumbled badly against the obstacle, crashed to the ground a few steps away from her, raising a dust cloud.

Mizuki stood watching it motionless for a few moments, crouching for cover behind the log, her knees pressed against her chest and one arm raised to cover her forehead. Then Finnian pounced like lightning on the sprawled figure; the cloud of dust that had risen prevented her from getting a clear view, but she distinctly heard the sound of swords thundering and flesh being torn. The dust was soon joined by another cloud of white smoke that made the whole scene even more confusing and surreal.

"Lucy! Take care of getting that sucker back on his feet!"

The captain landed in front of her. For a few moments, they stood staring at each other in silence, both motionless. An indecipherable expression hovered on the man's face. Mizuki watched him from below, still crouched and covered in dust from head to toe.

"You really are a shitty soldier, Onizuka," he finally decreed, carefully spelling out each word.

"I know, sir. I'm sorry."

"You're nothing but a cadet, but you dare to give orders to superiors and implement unauthorized strategies made up out of thin air. You also used too much gas. The commander doesn't piss that away at night, you know? The fucking taxpayers pay for it."

Mizuki got to her feet, staggering slightly. Despite the reprimand, a smile hovered on her lips, in which relief, pride, and the usual and unfailing amused gleam mixed. "Did you see that, though, captain?"

Finnian - like most people, after all - did not immediately understand what she was referring to, and this - as always - seemed to delight her even more.

"I didn't throw the swords, although I thought about it. Not bad, right?"

The man, after a moment's hesitation, burst out laughing and hit her with an open hand on the back, a gesture that could be interpreted either as encouragement or as a lecture condensed into physical punishment. "Damn you! Making me laugh in a situation like this! You're just irredeemable!" After that he raised his voice so that the rest of the team could hear him. "Come on, saddle up! We'll wait for Charlie's return and then we'll move on before more of them arrive!"

Mizuki hurried behind the captain to where their horses grazed the grass placidly, as if a pair of monsters over ten meters tall had not just been slaughtered next to them. Shaking his head, Finnian observed the felled logs, curiously and perfectly aligned side by side; a set-up that made clear the intention on the part of its creator to create a sort of rudimentary palisade. "Incomprehensible," he murmured, bending his head slightly toward the subordinate who trudged at his heels; but, rather than to her, that reflection seemed addressed to himself or, at most, to an invisible listener. "I wonder what the inhabitants of this area have been up to. Perhaps they tried to stop the giants' advance in this way when Wall Maria fell?"

Mizuki let her gaze wander until it met the smooth, severed stumps all at the same height. There was no doubt that it was attributable to human intervention, and not to the brute force of the giants or some curious natural phenomenon; and the only logically plausible explanation for its existence seemed the one outlined by Finnian. She looked away, sighing. Desperation sometimes instigated people to really unexpected behavior, and she, for her part, was living proof of that.

She was about to dismiss the matter in those terms, when something compelled her to turn her attention back to the logs.

Yes, there was something off about the whole thing.

It was then that she noticed a detail that, in the excitement of the fight, she had missed.

The something that was out of tune. She froze.

"Captain."

"What is it, Onizuka, do you have any other orders for me?"

"Later at the post you will have a meeting with the commander, right?"

"Sure. We will discuss how to reorganize the formation to cover holes. Why?"

"Uhm... I'd need you to take him a message from me. Please pass it on to the commander when you are alone with him."

Finnian stopped and then spun around in turn, bewildered by the utter impudence and inappropriateness of such a request. But the caustic words with which he had planned to reply died on his lips as soon as he caught sight of the expression on the face of the subordinate who never took anything seriously and who, until that moment, nothing had been able to scratch, not even a close encounter with two giants.

Whatever was running through her mind at that moment had upset her. No, worse. It had frightened her.

Without uttering a sound, Finnian merely nodded.

As Mizuki, in an atonal voice and carefully spelling out each word, told him the message he was to report to the commander, the disturbing feeling that his subordinate was different from all of them crept back into Finnian's mind.

OOO

The three little girls proceeded along the lakeshore in one line. The row opener jumped and laughed as she chased the lake butterflies that haunted the lush forest exploded on the banks of the water mirror. The little girl in the center walked with an apprehensive gait, constantly turning her gaze now to one, now to the other of her companions. The last one placed one foot in front of the other with extreme slowness and attention, as if the accomplishment of the gesture, however simple, required immense energy and concentration from her. She kept her eyes downcast, fixed on the ground, and her curly hair fell back in front of her face, giving her the appearance of a doll passed through the hands of an owner who was hardly inclined to treat his own objects with care.

The three girls were not there on a field trip, but for the purpose of carrying out the last project of the school year before the start of summer vacation. The task consisted of writing a report and related presentation to the class on the Village's places of historical interest. Mizuki, asked, had left it up to her classmates and project partners to choose the subject of the research. She did not care about that or the school. She didn't care about anything these days except dragging herself alive until the weekend when she would meet her mother.

So, her companions chose the lake, which they both loved, and in particular the temple that stood on its shores to commemorate the place where, in ancient times, a treaty had been signed with some people of unchallengeable strength.

That was where they were heading.

"Girls, are you in there?!" The little girl opening the line twirled in on herself and turned a jaunty smile on her companions. "But come on, you're as slow as snails! Come on, try to catch me!" And having said that, she set off running along the lake shore, still laughing.

"Hey! It's dangerous!" exclaimed the little girl in the middle.

Mizuki gave a low sigh and, without divesting herself of her usual air of dreamy apathy, slowly said: "You can go with her, if you want."

"Ah... No, I could never keep up with her."

"You don't need to go slow on purpose for me. I'll get there too, though in my own time."

The little girl in the middle bit her lip, then shook her head and decreased her pace further to come alongside the other. They remained in silence for a few minutes. Mizuki seemed to feel guilty for forcing her to linger, because she clenched her fists and tried to increase the speed of her gait.

"You shouldn't exert yourself."

"You shouldn't have waited for me either."

The child went back to biting her lips, a conditioned reflex she indulged in situations of uncertainty. "Keeping the energy to be cheerful at home seems more important to me than getting to that temple quickly. Save them."

Mizuki stood still, as if frozen. Her eyes, however, darted in the direction of the little girl at her side, as if carefully assessing the scope of the words she had just addressed to her, and attempting to grasp their hidden meaning.

"Last Sunday I came into town to run some errands for my mother, and I happened to pass by the hospital... Sorry, I didn't mean to intrude, but I saw you in the garden. At first I thought I was mistaken, you couldn't have been that little girl laughing like crazy..."

Mizuki squinted her eyes.

"Don't worry, I didn't say anything to anyone."

She nodded, in thanks.

They resumed walking, if possible even more slowly than before. That brief exchange seemed to have drained what little energy Mizuki had left. However, after a very long time, she cleared her throat to utter a few simple words, "I want my mother to see me happy. Like when she was still with us. But since she left, it has become more and more difficult."

The little girl at her side nodded. "I understand."

She had imagined that Mizuki was dealing with something like this, although her childlike mind did not possess the tools and knowledge to fully and deeply understand the implications. Once back home, after spying Mizuki's running and laughing in that garden, her curly hair fluttering in the wind, she tried to put herself in her shoes, but she could not. She honestly judged it unbelievable, a kind of miracle, that Mizuki showed up at school every morning. If she had been in her shoes, with her mother hospitalized, she believed that she would not be able to even get out of bed. That Mizuki had the appearance of a ghost, and the reactivity of some cats too old to still appreciate life seemed as natural to her as the fact that an object thrown upward, after reaching the apex of its parabola, would sooner or later begin to fall.

"I don't mind waiting," she added, this time without biting her lip because she did not have the slightest hesitation in offering that assurance.

Mizuki nodded again. On her face continued to hover the same dull, apathetic expression as before, but her cheeks turned slightly red.

The child felt a spasmodic need to facilitate that process. She longed to contemplate again that bloodless face bursting with life and joy, and to lose herself in the sound of unrestrained laughter, as in those few stolen moments in the hospital courtyard - the place in the world where one would have least expected to stumble upon such externals; and instead, it was there that the little girl had seen the sun. She had been dazzled by it, and now she wished with all her might to repeat the experience.

So, she reached out her hand and gently took Mizuki's.

The latter's head quivered slightly; a normal person in her place would have jerked, but that imperceptible movement was as close to a reaction as one could get from her in those days. She studied the little girl at her side surreptitiously as if seeing her for the first time. And indeed a little bit she was. She seemed to realize for the first time in that moment that there were two Williams in the world identical to each other like drops of water and that in a less crazy story they would be born within one body.

In the gray, formless blanket that was reality to her in those days, the Williams who had penetrated the barrier of her apathy, showing up in a squeaky voice on the first day of school, was the other one, the more boisterous and irreverent one. The Williams who squeezed her hand, by contrast, always taciturn and compassionate, hovered in her memories like an indistinct shadow, a vague and blurred reflection of her twin sister.

The very same sister who, realizing the defection of the two companions, was rushing back to retrieve them. On the way she stumbled and rolled along the slightly sloping ground with a cry. That sight drew a kind of smile from Mizuki, an imperceptible quiver of lips that curved before stretching again into a flat, austere line.

Again a slight tinkling of the head in surprise as the mind registered that uncontrolled reaction of the body formally subjected to its control. It had been months now since she had been able to smile in front of people other than her mother and family members, in a place other than the white, cool, oppressive walls of the hospital.

She lowered her gaze to the hand clasped in her own. She did not remember that a human being could convey so much warmth. When she hugged her mother before leaving the hospital to return to an empty house, the arms wrapped around her chest were icy cold.

"Caroline is amazing, isn't she? She always manages to put everyone in a good mood." Lavinia Williams spoke being careful that her hair hid her face, but Mizuki could still distinctly sense the pride and envy tangled in her voice as she spoke of her twin sister.

Lavinia had not missed that hint of a smile in Mizuki: she welcomed it as a blessing, because she wanted nothing more than to sink back into the radiant light she had contemplated in the hospital garden, and at the same time as a curse, because it was not she but her sister who had snatched it from her. That younger sister identical to her and in whose shadow she had lived since they had come into the world. That sister whom she loved and hated.

But it mattered little. That smile had been there, and that was enough. She was willing to give up her friend's heart to Caroline's malice, if it would still allow her to stay by her side and see her smile.

"You know, Caroline and I live in a house on the shores of this lake with our mother. Maybe you could come visit us when you're not too tired."

Mizuki could not voice her response, but - after a long pause and equally long reflection - she imperceptibly squeezed Lavinia's hand.

That was the real moment when her bond with the Williams sisters began.

OOO

The formation reached its destination half an hour before sunset, behind schedule. The adventure in the forest - besides costing the lives of five men - had slowed the advance toward the base. So as not to be caught in the darkness on the way, the commander had passed around an order to push the horses to the maximum of their capabilities.

The fortress designated as the first base of operations for the reconquest of Wall Maria was in a relatively decent state of preservation despite long years of surrender to the forces of nature and weather. In several places, the ceiling had collapsed, and the walls smelled of mold and dampness; nevertheless, the thick walls offered more than enough shelter from the winter wind that swept the clearing, so no one - except Levi, who began grumbling about dirt and dust from miles away - dreamed of complaining about spending the night there rather than in the open.

On the highest point of the fortress, a half-ruined tower, flew proudly the flag of the Survey Corps, a barren but necessary tribute to the soldiers' sense of pride and belonging, a symbol of their misleading and transient triumph. No human eye could have contemplated it until the reconquest plan was fully implemented; but the knowledge that the wings of freedom towered over the building, deep in enemy territory, was enough to revive them. The men of the Survey Corps had triumphed, and they had been here, silently shouted the flag to anyone willing to lend an ear.

The superiors divided the soldiers into two groups, each of whom was ordered to settle in the large rooms that opened up on either side of the building - the first, the east one, previously used as a reception hall, and the second, on the west, as a storehouse for supplies.

For about an hour after arrival, the abandoned fortress came alive as in the good old days before the fall of the stronghold it would serve to recapture. Everywhere one could glimpse soldiers intent on running from one side to the other without exchanging a word or a glance, busy as they were with frenzied and undeferrable activities. After that first phase, however, the excitement waned as the more important tasks were rigorously completed. Finally, those who were not busy with unloading wagons or guard duty were allowed to rest.

After devoting herself to treating the wounded - to her enormous relief a negligible and minor handful - Mizuki prepared to join the members of Levi Squad, the only friends outside the walls she counted at the moment in the army ranks.

"Mizuki! Is it true that you shot down two giants?" Petra stood up with a beaming expression as soon as she saw her friend approaching their group.

"Well, that wasn't what happened at all. My captain shot them down. I just helped in one case, and in the other I acted as a decoy. How was it for you?"

Eld ran a hand over her head, tousling her hair, which - with a sigh of relief, and massaging her aching roots - she had finally freed from the tight bun. "Good. We took down an abnormal that was threatening the rear."

"Actually, it wasn't really us, but Captain Levi," Petra pointed out, blushing, and Mizuki's heart clenched as she caught sight of the flash of pride and devotion that lit her gaze.

"Ah, come on. I was sure it was Oluo, who saved your asses. And something is telling me that if he hasn't taken credit for it, so far, it's because his tongue has suffered its usual little accident on the way." Mizuki winked in the direction of the young man, who was sitting aside and downcast-eyed, holding his cheek.

"Shi...shilence!" he muttered with obvious difficulty.

"Oh, how did you possibly guess? It never happens that he bites his tongue because he talks too much," laughed Petra.

At that point, Mizuki pulled a small wrapper out of the saddlebag she carried at her side and then threw it to Oluo. "Take it. It's a pill, put it under your tongue. It's supposed to help with the pain."

"You spoil him too much, Mizuki." commented Gunther sternly, closing his newly polished device with a snap. "He'll never learn to keep his mouth shut like that. If only he would say intelligent things..."

"I know, unfortunately I have a tendency to spoil children" she sighed, clutching her shoulders. " Where is Sunshine, by the way? Still busy with the meeting with the important people?"

Eld nodded, "Yes, but I'm sure he'll be back any minute. This scouting, so far, has gone incredibly well and there will be little to rearrange."

"Yeah," agreed Gunther. "It's been a long time since we suffered only twelve casualties in the course of a day's scouting."

Before Mizuki could reply, something struck her back. "Hey, scum!"

"Why do I feel like I've lived this scene before?" she muttered, running a hand over her face and rolling her eyes, before turning around. "Do you need anything, Henry?"

Her teammate peered at her red as a bell pepper with an obvious attitude of challenge which, however, did not prevent him from keeping a safe distance; his right arm, which had sprained the moment Mizuki had thrown him out of the giant's reach, was hanging around his neck, and she had patched it up herself just twenty minutes earlier. "'Do you think I don't know what you're up to?"

"I have no doubt you could write a whole treatise on the subject."

"See that you don't get your head up just because you didn't kick the bucket today! This is nothing! And get that smug look off your face. No one asked you to intervene, and you can be sure I don't feel I owe you anything at all!"

"Oh, how stupid of me. I'm sorry I gave that impression..."

Henry raised his head, with a smug grimace. "You are so stupid, at least you said something right! It's written all over your face that you're gloating like an idiot about today, and..."

"No, no. I'm afraid I haven't made myself clear," Mizuki took a step in his direction, and he instinctively stepped back. "I meant that I'm sorry for giving the impression that I saved your ass for free."

Henry petrified.

"Do you really think I risked my life for a pain in the ass like you without wanting anything in return? Don't worry, you won't have to feel you owe me anything because you will repay me properly by giving up your tomato share and doing the cleaning for me. That is, if you don't want it to be known around that you pissed yourself..."

"Damn you!" squealed Henry and took an unsteady step toward Mizuki, raising his good arm.

"HOLMES!" thundered a voice to their right. Without the two disputants noticing, Finnian had approached the small group, staring angrily at his subordinate. "I thought I had ordered you to compensate for your uselessness during today's fight by taking care of the horses. Yet here I find you provoking a fight?"

"No, sir ... it was she who ..." stammered Henry, lowering his arm.

"'GET OFF YOUR ASS AND GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!'"

For a moment, Mizuki thought the boy would collapse to the ground, paralyzed with fear by Finnian's wrath, which, as far as she was concerned, turned out to be far more terrifying than a giant. Nevertheless, after gathering his courage, he turned his back on the group and hurriedly walked away with his head down, accompanied by Petra and Oluo's laughter.

"As for you, Onizuka, I note with pleasure that you have finally decided to pull out your claws. I was really starting to think you enjoyed being insulted by an idiot." Finnian's gaze, despite the sharp, sarcastic tone, settled on Mizuki with a certain air of benevolence.

She shrugged her shoulders. "What should I tell you? It's been a bad day for me too..." Mizuki froze in mid-sentence, noticing only then the person concealed from the group's view due to his short stature and the imposing size of the stout Captain Finnian. A genuine smile lit up her face. "Sunshine! Do you see that I am still part of this world?"

Levi regarded her for a moment as if she were a garbage bag. "Yes, I suspected it judging by the commotion coming from here."

Finnian grabbed his subordinate by the shoulders and then vehemently rubbed her head with the knuckles of his free hand. "'Is that any way to address a superior?!"

Levi walked past them to join his own men without giving her further attention, too tired and irritated to deal with the outgoings of that intemperate and annoying brat; she was alive and more messy than ever, and that was enough for him. Once again, Hanje had thrown a fit during the meeting, loudly demanding permission for her to capture another giant. At a weary nod from Erwin, it had fallen upon him to throw her out of the room, not without first enduring and being subjected at close range to shouts of protest and accusations of wanting to cover up the truth and hold back science.

"When we return, I will ask the commander to put you on my team and I will straighten out your temper!"

After those words, Finnian let go of Mizuki, who took a few steps back, massaging her head. "Speaking of the commander, did you happen to...?"

Her captain's face darkened for a moment. Levi, who had heard the message reported to Erwin at the end of the meeting, turned his head slightly to observe the scene; his team members, oblivious to the matter, leaned in the direction of Finnian and Mizuki to catch every word of the conversation and draw useful clues from it. "Yes. He said he would talk to you about it once we got back. I warn you, though, he didn't seem particularly convinced."

Mizuki nodded, seemingly satisfied. "I see."

"Now hurry up and go get some rest. We'll take over the watch later."

"'Yessir'!" Mizuki raised a waving hand in the direction of Team Levi. "Good night, everyone! See you tomorrow!"

Finnian sighed, casting an exasperated glance at Levi and, after a moment, prepared to follow his subordinate who had sprinted to the other end of the room.

"But how can she run after a day like this? She's really..." he muttered annoyed and vaguely outraged; but even so, an amused smile hovered on his lips. He was on the verge of using a certain expression, but finally restrained himself, certain of the fact that if his subordinate had heard it, it would not have pleased her at all. "...a strange girl," he then concluded, shaking his head.

OOO

Mizuki absentmindedly scanned the view that offered itself to her gaze: a clearing illuminated poorly by the torches planted by soldiers all around the structure, the forest of giant trees bathed in darkness, and the sky brightly lit by stars.

It was a sight that should have thrilled her; only the night before she had broken curfew to contemplate it. Yet, she did not feel that way now. And perhaps the reason could be found precisely in the nocturnal hours spent next to an icy man, who in all likelihood detested her, and endured her only because of his being "hard bark, soft interior".

The wind lashed the top of the balcony where Captain Mike had decided to establish the guard post on the south side of the fortress. It was cold, but the changing of the guard shift had taken place just a quarter of an hour earlier, and the heat of the interior - that warmth emitted, more than from the fires lit in the makeshift hearths, from the bodies of the one hundred and ninety-five soldiers crowded inside the rooms, from their regular breaths, from the mingling of words and from the looks of comfort and encouragement that were exchanged - still lingered in her limbs.

No sooner had she set foot on the balcony than Lucy, her patrol partner, threw her sleeping bag to the ground and glared at Mizuki. "Let's be clear. I plan to rest for these two hours."

Mizuki glanced at her for a few moments: although her black hair was shorter and less shiny than Lavinia's, sometimes, when Lucy was not looking at her and was not speaking in her shrill little voice, she almost had the impression that her friend was in front of her. "All right, go ahead."

The calmness in Mizuki's tone of voice, as always, left Lucy puzzled, and she retracted her back as if the other had just spit on her. "You're really nuts. Can't you act like a normal person?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, is it possible that you can be told anything, and yet you don't get annoyed?"

Mizuki peered at her for a moment in silence. "Are you telling me that you would like me better if I were to threaten to break your nose now?"

Lucy hopped away from the girl who was quietly peering at her, assumed an outraged look, and then, muttering disconnected phrases, hurriedly slipped into her sleeping bag. "Out of her mind... not normal..."

Mizuki, huddled against the wall, peered into the darkness, reassured that she didn't give a damn that Lucy thought she was crazy.

It had been that way ever since Rei, when she was eleven, had taught her his trick for living well: what people thought of her did not concern her at all, nor was she in any way required to account for her actions or her origins to others. Once she learned that simple yet profound truth, many of her problems had been solved or, at any rate, significantly reduced.

Go ahead, and don't listen to them, Rei whispered to her; why do you care? You don't owe them any explanation. They don't understand, and they wouldn't understand even if you explained, or they wouldn't care to listen to you. And then, leaning toward her, he hummed in a low voice the verses of a song that only the old men of the Village listened to: get up, get out, get away from these liars,'cause they don't get your soul or your fire*.

However, to some she had felt compelled to explain herself. More than once, and moreover, touching on subjects that perhaps it would have been better to keep to herself.

Mizuki began tapping nervously with a finger on the back of her boot.

She did not mind talking about her mother. Her death was a step in her own journey that she had come to accept.

What she could not come to terms with was having talked to the captain about it.

The excitement of departure and the first day of scouting, and concern about Petra's reaction, had distracted her for a while from reflecting on what had happened the night before. But now the icy stillness of the night, the suggestion of an abandoned world that men were desperately trying to win back, and the vision, this time solitary, of the spectacle of the stars compelled her to face the question.

With him, she had felt the pressing need to justify herself, and her wide mouth had done the rest. She had felt compelled to explain the origin of her approach to the scouting and the possibility of death that loomed ahead, because she did not want the captain to...

The tapping on her boot became faster.

She had to admit it.

She did not want him to despise her completely. She didn't want him, like the others, to see her only as an unconscious, slightly nutty, stupid brat. She did not want him to label her as someone who took lightly the history of the faceless dead he carried in his heart.

That was why she had told him about her mother, and about how she had felt for a long time after learning of her illness.

How, after her passing away, at the age of ten and a half she had realized that death spares no one, and can strike at the most unexpected moment of all the most unexpected person.

He had listened to her, and - though the tale had been delivered in her usual light tone - he had understood; even if he had not put it into words, Mizuki knew he had. And this, perhaps, was precisely what she appreciated most about the captain: he called her a brat from morning to night, but he listened to her and spoke to her as an adult. He approached her like an adult. And he understood her, perhaps because he himself - whatever the classrooms had taught him that - had come to his own conclusion: that the future was uncertain, and unexpected, and terrible.

On the spot, the night before, she felt relief and was overwhelmed by a feeling of lightness. She looked at the bright sky, and then at the captain's gray eyes, so clear they seemed transparent in the moonlight, and said a lot of nonsense.

And now she bitterly regretted it. She thought she had imagined that flash of understanding in the captain's impassive, pale face. Why should he have cared about her mother? About her story? Just nothing, simply nothing. Probably, the confession irritated him, and plunged his already low opinion of her into the ground.

She should have kept her mouth shut.

She had been fooled. That was what had happened. But from now on she was going to keep her guard up.

The history of her life - and of her family, above all - was studded with several events that would be better kept secret, even at the cost of coming across as insane.

"You must be careful old Mizuki," she chided herself in a whisper. "Be careful. You've done enough damage already."

That faint whisper was lost in the noise of the lashing wind, as the girl confirmed, within herself, her resolution to observe in the future the rule to which she had been conforming for the past three and a half years.

To hide from the world, because the world, in any case, would not understand her. The captain less than the others.

She nodded with conviction and serenity, and tilted her head back to enjoy the stars. Alone, this time.

Still, her slender finger kept tapping nervously on the back of her boot for the entire duration of the patrol shift.

OOO

Mizuki rode, trying to flatten herself as much as possible on her steed, so as to reduce air friction and, therefore, any element that might have delayed her return. Her hands tightened convulsively on the reins, and her feet tapped fiercely in the animal's sides to urge it to hurry, to go fast, faster and faster.

"Come on, Ronnie! Come on!"

They were not the ones who shot. It couldn't have been them. I just left them twenty minutes ago...

Her eyes still burned from how hard she had stared at the sky crossed by a yellow trail.

The signal that a team engaged in battle.

The placid tranquility that had connoted the first day of the expedition was a distant memory now.

The march to return to the walls began at first light; following the rearrangement of the formation, Finnian squad - which had distinguished itself the previous day by taking down as many as two giants, despite being composed mainly of recruits - was placed at one of the most dangerous points of the deployment: the rear of the right wing, in the penultimate row and on the outer flank. Their main task was to "watch the back" of the formation, standing ready to step in to support other squads in case of emergency and eliminating the giants charging from behind as they were impossible to avoid with the smoke grenade stratagem.

The first two hours of the ride dragged on without major complications. After a break to rest the horses, the formation set out again. The soldiers' hearts overflowed with premature, and therefore dangerous, relief at the thought that they had left three-quarters of the scouting unscathed behind them; their superiors noticed, but they knew they could not stop that process, and eradicate the feeling of confidence and overwhelm that had blossomed in the breasts of their subordinates.

The tragedy began an hour after the break.

A black smoke grenade in front of them crossed the sky. The soldiers stared at it dumbfounded for long moments, not realizing - or refusing to realize - what was happening, in the same way a group of children who have just shattered a window in the course of a game petrify for a few moments; some closed their eyes, basking for a moment in the hope that when they opened them again, they would no longer see the black trail camping in the sky and the shards of glass scattered on the floor.

But when they reopened them, the smoke was still crossing the vault of heaven, and the window was still being shattered.

Soon the message began to circulate - carried from squad to squad by terrified recruits - that an abnormal had broken through the formation and was scampering through the ranks of soldiers. The order given by the command team was to shoot it down as soon as it was spotted, before it caused too much damage. As if that were not enough, when communication reached Finnian squad, another relay had just made them aware of the sudden toppling of one of the wagons traveling ahead of them, and of the fact that some soldiers were pinned under its imposing weight. While waiting for instructions from Erwin, they had to get the information out and rush to the aid of their comrades in distress.

Captain Finnian's face darkened. "Did you hear that, Onizuka? I entrust you with taking the message to the team on our right. As soon as you're done join us, we'll go to assist!"

She hesitated to respond. That represented exactly the kind of order that, whatever the circumstances, she would never, ever carry out.

An evil little voice inside her head sneered smugly. There, it seemed to say to her, you wanted to play soldier, and look what has happened now; you will never comply with such an order because it is not within your power to do so. You will never be able to abandon your comrades at a juncture like this.

Although she did not want to agree with the snake whispering in her ear instigating insubordination, indeed separating at that precise moment did not seem like a good idea. What if while she was away the team encountered the abnormal? What if there were other giants lurking in the formation, penetrating the holes opened by the anomalous? What if...?

Damn you! Making me laugh in a situation like this! You are just irredeemable!

"So? Do I have to wait until the walls for an answer!"

When we return, I'll ask the commander to put you on my team and I'll straighten out your temper!

Mizuki squinted her eyes, and hushed the sneering little voice that kept ringing in her head.

"Yessir!"

And now, after carrying the message and as she was returning to her position, that yellow smoke.

The more minutes passed, the more Mizuki tried to convince himself that it was not her team that had engaged in battle. No, impossible. The firing came from too central a part of the formation, too far forward, too far back, too far outside...

She heard the cries.

Her fingers twitched around the reins.

"Come on, Ronnie!"

Finally, the slope on which the horse was laboriously stumbling ended and Mizuki faced the clearing. One glance was enough for her to realize that the situation was irretrievably lost.

Sensei... Loki... Amado... Lavinia...

She vaguely guessed that she was falling prey to a hallucination, but at that moment she did not have enough strength left to fight, along with the real threat posed by the giants, the chimeras of her mind.

She was back again in that forest that had made her feel as small, helpless and desperate as she had as a child; the forest where she had contemplated the end of most of her companions and where she was about to witness the death of the only four survivors.

Four hundred meters away, two giants - one class four meters, the other twelve. All around blood, and screams, and the wind sweeping the plain. Her teammates were there, and so was sensei. He was the only one still standing, fighting with his last remaining strength against the smaller giants.

As if in a trance, she planted her boots in Ronnie's side to order it to advance. Mansuitous and elegant, the animal set off leading its mistress into danger. Her head was light, and - though she realized she was in a state of confusion - she believed she had never been more clear-headed than at that moment.

The hand of the four-foot-class giant came down on sensei, who collapsed to the ground; then the beast brought its snout closer and sank its jaws in, snapping off one of his legs.

Ronnie came up behind the titan at an incredible speed. With a cry of rage, Mizuki took a leap from the top of her mount, brandishing the blades she did not remember drawing, and charged all her own suffering into that blow. The swords sank into the flesh of the back of the giant's head with a revolting sound.

She fell to the ground. She felt like a puppet with broken strings: her limbs did not respond to commands, and indeed her own mind was milling about with thoughts that did not belong to her. Still, she pulled herself to her feet; perhaps it was survival instinct that moved her, perhaps desperation, perhaps the omen that it was not yet over.

No, right. There was one more of those monsters left.

She raised her head. She thought confusedly that she had forgotten to raise her hood. Damn, then everyone would see her eyes. The commander would not have been pleased. But he was not there, at the moment, to prevent that slaughter, so he would get over it.

Among the white hot cloud that rose from the corpse of the giant who had just been taken down, she saw the remaining enemy carrying a defenseless body to its mouth. Had she been lucid, she might have noticed that the body's back was bent at an unnatural angle, and that it did not belong to Lavinia. It was impossible that it was her.

But in that instant, all she saw was a woman's head framed by black hair sprouting from the giant's fingers.

She lost what shred of control over herself she had left.

When she regained self-awareness, she found herself running along the giant's back as if on a flat road. She raised the blades that gave off bluish flashes at the same instant that the monster's mouth closed over Lavinia's head. She attacked with a precise and lethal gesture, and the blades enlivened by flashes lacerated the flesh.

The giant's body capitulated to the ground, and Mizuki landed beside it with a graceful gesture. She was barely panting. She unhooked the now chipped blades from the handle of the device. With wide eyes she studied the headless female corpse lying a few feet away from her.

Lucy Doyle. Lucy Doyle. Lucy Doyle, her mind kept repeating, like a chant.

Lavinia, as well as Amado and Loki, was safely away from there.

The hallucination took to gradually loosening its grip on her imagination.

A groan behind her back forced her to turn around. Finnian lay in a pool of blood, his eyes open and focused on her. Mizuki approached him. She did not even try to assist him: the giant had severed his right leg and torn through the man's lower abdomen; only a miracle could have saved him.

He sketched a smile. "I don't remember teaching you ... to climb a giant like that."

Mizuki did not respond. The captain had seen all there was to see, the whole package; but it no longer mattered.

"Another one of your crazy moves, huh? The blades must be chipped off for sure... And those eyes too... I thought I'd gone crazy yesterday morning. But they're really red."

With an unconscious movement, the girl brought a hand to her eyelids, as if to hide her own secret. "I'm sorry, captain."

"Damn ... you. You're right to apologize. You're a shitty soldier, Mizuki."

She collapsed to the ground beside Finnian and reached for his hand. "I... I am not like you. I'm sorry."

"You're not ... like us?" The man's eyes grew misty, and his breath shortened. Images of drndri and Finnian, propelled by the last remnants of the hallucination that had subdued her, overlapped in Mizuki's mind. Sensei had also looked at her in the same way, almost begging her not to abandon him, in the last moments of his agony. "This is bullshit. We are... all men. Men against those monsters. No, I think you... that you're just a little weird. But you're not..."

He gasped. A trickle of blood dripped from his mouth, his grip on Mizuki's hand loosened, and Finnian closed his eyes. Yet he found the strength he needed to complete his last sentence, the last message, the last order with which his subordinate would remember him forever.

"No, you are not. You are no different from us."

Mizuki contemplated the man's serene face and gently placed his hand on the still intact part of his belly. "You're right, captain. I'm a shitty soldier." she murmured, as the sanguine tint that had lit her gaze faded, and her fingers grazed the man's for one last time. "But I'll still do my best."

She raised her head. Ronnie peered at her quietly a hundred yards away. Beside it, the captain's and Henry's horses grazed, heedless of the smoke and blood that littered the ground.

Until the day I die...

Mizuki pulled herself to her feet.

You're not really thinking of offering your heart, I hope.

The mission was not over yet.

OOO

She reached the overturned wagon seven minutes later.

She descended the hill on top of which her team had been annihilated, taking the captain's and Henry's horses with her. Dita Neiss had repeated to his disciples ad nauseam and at the very least once a class that if they found animals without an owner, they were to approach them and bring them back to the walls. Horses constituted a valuable resource for soldiers on scouting duty, which could have marked the difference between life and death, and a huge expense for the Corps and taxpayers, who would be none too happy to find that some clueless person had missed the opportunity to bring one home alive. So, Dita Neiss concluded, they had to take care of it as if it were their own children; although, ultimately, the only one who followed that instruction to the letter with his own horse, Charlotte, was just him, whereas his disciples nodded with conviction at each new monologue on the subject only to have the lesson end more quickly.

Just beyond the foot of the hill, Mizuki glimpsed a handful of men, crowded around a wagon and composed mostly of distraught and frightened cadets. As she galloped up to the group, she tried to make up her mind: in that position, protecting the wagons, was the squad of Captain Talia Creps, absent at roll call and most likely deceased; Ronalad Skam, her deputy and the only officer present, was the first to spot her.

"Hey, who are you? Identify yourself!"

"Cadet Mizuki Onizuka, Finnian squad. The rest of my teammates fell while coming to your rescue!" Mizuki stopped the horse in front of the man. With a quick glance she studied the situation and felt anger mount within her.

The wagon lay upside down, its four mud-encrusted wheels sparkling in the midday sun like colored crystals. Two cadets were attempting unsuccessfully to push the vehicle forward and, at intervals, were casting apprehensive glances toward the upper ends of two bodies poking out almost shyly from under the vehicle.

"Why on earth are you trying to move this heap of wood without the horses?" asked Mizuki, dismounting from her own steed.

The vice-captain's face contracted into an angry grimace. "There is an abnormal around, and you really think I would order my men to tie their horse to an overturned wagon? What would happen if it reached us?!"

Mizuki bit her lip to hold back a very inappropriate answer for a cadet. "Now we have them," she forced herself to say instead, pointing with a nod to Finnian and Henry's horses. "If we tie them up smartly and use those axles that came loose, maybe we can even turn it around. The wheels are intact, we can load the wounded..." So saying, she went around the wagon so as to reach the front, where the bridle hooks were placed, and set to work. Her gaze fell on the side of the vehicle previously hidden from her view, and she held her breath. One of the corners of the wagon had planted itself in the head of a soldier, making it explode like a watermelon hit by a stick, and scattering blood, flaps of flesh, and brains everywhere; the other soldier, on the other hand, had only the end of his left leg stuck, and...

She recognized Willy, the bloodless face, as the last and only note of color and life the freckles that furrowed his nose and cheeks. That face, which only two nights before had brightened in speaking to her. He kept his eyes closed, apparently too exhausted even to externalize his pain by shouting.

""Who the hell do you think you are?!" roared Ronald.

"Just a shitty soldier."

"Are you making fun of me?!"

The sound of an approaching horse interrupted the discussion. A man was galloping at full speed toward the group along the same road Mizuki had just traveled. He was shouting disjointed, inarticulate phrases addressed with all evidence to the group of people clustered around the wagon, but the lashing wind prevented those present from grasping the meaning of the speech until he was only a few meters away.

"The abnormal is approaching from the left! Men, it is ordered to retreat! Quick!"

Mizuki had just finished tying the reins of the two reserve horses to the wagon. She looked up astonished to observe the soldiers around her rushing to their respective mounts and hastily climbing onto them. "Hey! What the heck are you doing?!"

"Are you deaf, by any chance?!" growled Ronald at her from atop his horse.

Mizuki, with a snap, reached him and grabbed the reins. "We can't leave Willy here!"

The ground shook beneath their feet. The gaze of everyone present darted to the left. A dark figure was advancing at high speed down the valley that stretched at the foot of the hill, pointing exactly in their direction.

"Levi squad is coming from the rear. The commander has given them the task of taking it down!" replied the messenger, in whose voice urgency was intertwined with barely suppressed terror.

"Did you hear that?! Let go!" Ronald tugged at the reins to free himself from Mizuki's grip: the leather tore at the skin of her palm, but she gritted her teeth and did not let go.

"What if they don't make it in time? It's going to step on him! The horses are already tied up, we just have to..."

But Ronald, at the height of desperation and anger, kicked her arm, finally forcing her to let go. "Do whatever you want, you little idiot! I will not risk my men's lives for a cripple!" He then tapped the sides of his horse's with his boots. "Team! Let's go!"

He saw them galloping off one after the other: all with their heads down, all pretending that WIlly no longer existed; all carefully avoiding crossing her gaze.

She stood motionless for a long moment. The vibrations caused by the giant's run began to spread even to the slopes of the hill. The horses neighed, nervous. She felt the blood rushing to her face, going to her head, and her cheeks flaming with terror.

Until the day I die...

What was she supposed to do? What could she do? Around the wagon she could not spot any raised points she could use to attack it. And the abnormals were dangerous, a whole different story from normal giants. She could never bring it down on her own.

You're not really thinking of offering your heart, I hope.

All it would have taken was a second - no, a fraction of a second, the slightest mistake and it would have crushed her to a pulp.

Just promise me that you won't do anything crazy

Lavinia, who stifled her crying by sinking her face into the pillow, and waited for her beyond the walls.

No bullshit, brat.

She had promised captain Levi, too.

She couldn't die there. She didn't want to die.

She turned three-quarters, trembling, and took a step toward Ronnie.

I have to protect them Willy, you see. I have to come back alive, I can't die. They need me. Captain Finnian, you always told me to follow orders, and now I'm doing it. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry...

No, you're not. You are no different from us.

Another step. Ronnie raised its head and peered at its mistress with its tame eyes.

Don't worry. I will protect you tomorrow.

Her gaze fell on Willy's bloodless face. He lay there, pale, and if the abnormal had crushed him his cheeks would no longer grow rosy in flirting with a girl.

Why did it happen? Why did they die?

Even now, after so many years, she was unable to provide an acceptable answer to the question that haunted her.

The earth shook beneath her like a box of crayons shaken by a child.

I'm sorry, but I don't know.

No, she didn't know. After all that time, she still had no idea why all those people died.

She froze.

Nor did she know why Willy would die. And Captain Finnian...

She turned first one foot, and then the other.

Captain Finnian, on the other hand, had died bringing assistance to a shy boy with freckles, without imagining that the boy was a condemned man.

She took one step, and then another.

Why had the order to retreat been given?

Another step.

Why?

And without even knowing how, without even realizing what was happening, she found herself facing the plain from which the abnormal, just over a kilometer away, was approaching the wagon at frightening speed.

"FUCK YOU!" she yelled with all the breath she had in her throat, before launching herself into a wild run at the giant's heels. "I won't let you pass!"

Her red eyes - eyes accustomed to seeing everything, even the most insignificant detail - scrutinized her prey intently, carefully studying every inflection of the movement of that mastodontic body. A class eleven or twelve meters, with arms spinning on their axis like mill blades. She immediately discarded the possibility of going around him with the device, so as to reach the back of its head: that perpetual whirling of the arms turned the risk of becoming an omelet into a guarantee; on the other hand, she did not even think she had enough time to afford such a maneuver. She had to take it down right away, before it got any closer to the wagon. Coldly, she calculated approximately where they would meet in their respective rides, and with irritation she realized that if she tried to cut his hamstrings, she would risk sending it crashing down on Willy and the horses. The only option was to make it fall on its back, but how?

There had to be something she could do.

Fast, she had to come up with a plan faster.

They kept running, she and the abnormal, and sooner or later they would meet.

It was then that she noticed that the movement of its legs was irregular.

An imperceptible, almost negligible imbalance that nevertheless did not escape her notice. As a doctor, and as the holder of an innate ocular technique, she could never have missed such a detail.

One ... two ... three ... four ... five ... that's more than enough time.

The left foot took five seconds to rise and fall to the ground, compared to the three seconds of the right foot.

With a fluid gesture and without stopping running, Mizuki unfastened her cloak and threw it to the side, abandoning it to the jaws of the wind sweeping across the plain. Even if the soldiers' garments were not vomited up by the commander at night, they could all forget about her kicking the bucket because she got entangled while carrying out the gamble that was her plan; the taxpayers would get over it.

After that, she increased her pace.

OOO

The team reached the edge of the hill at a gallop, but as soon as Levi noticed the abnormal giant running across the plain he gave the order to stop. They had to take it down, but they also needed a plan, and judging by the conformation of the ground it would not be easy to devise one.

Petra suddenly raised a yell of surprise. "Captain! Look! Isn't that... Mizuki?!"

"What the fuck is she doing?! Is she crazy?!" shouted Oluo, voicing the thoughts of the entire group.

A tiny figurine ran straight up to that monster fifteen times her size. Without blades. On foot. And it was Mizuki, no doubt about it. The bun surmounting her head could be seen from there. Moreover, no one would ever be foolish enough to throw him or herself into such an endeavor except her.

They saw her cast off her cloak. Did she want to die free of unnecessary embellishments, perhaps?

"What shall we do, captain?" The anguish in Petra's voice crawled down Levi's neck, physically tangible.

What could they do? Nothing, absolutely nothing. They were too far from her, and the abnormal too fast.

For a moment the same image of two nights earlier camped in Levi's mind, the same one that she-with words full of stupid, unconscious strength and her usual crystalline laughter-had wiped away with a swipe of her hand: a vision of the near future that would unfold before him, the brat's glassy eyes staring blankly at him, her tiny, angular body rendered unrecognizable by the giant's foot that had smashed it.

He turned his head away, and hardened his heart.

There was no point in contemplating the agony of someone already dead, already lost, already cold in body and in his memory; nor did he need new material to haunt the nightmares that kept him awake night after night.

What a little shithead...

And shithead he who had given in to that tempting invitation. Even if only for a night, even if only for a handful of hours, he had contemplated the starry sky with the belief that all would be well.

But then he went back to looking. He went back to looking, not even realizing that he had done so, because - despite the situation, against all evidence and logic - he still believed in the promise she had made to him.

In front of his eyes, he watched as Mizuki gradually bent downward, now a handful of meters away from the giant's left foot, which was beginning to rise, ready to crush her, and then…

OOO

Now!

Mizuki threw herself forward with all her might at the exact moment when the abnormal lifted its right foot to continue the run.

One...

She slammed violently to the ground. She did not wait to recover from the blow, and began to crawl convulsively forward, slithering with her elbows against the jagged ground.

Two...

On her feet, she ran.

Three...

She ran as never before in her life; as she had not even run that distant night when she had lost Rei and Caroline, and the world had collapsed on her.

Four...

No, I think you... you're just a little weird. But you're not...

Five!

A huge jolt behind her threw her to the ground, as the giant's foot came crashing down inches from her legs.

With a flick of her kidneys, she immediately spun around on her back and, before her prey got too far away, quickly drew her blades and operated the device; the grappling hooks thrust into the titan's darting shoulders. Mizuki thundered upward in a perfect straight line, pulled by the force of the device and the same unrestrained motion of the abnormal's arms.

As soon as she felt the upward momentum fade, and her body slowly and inexorably slide downward, exactly in the direction of the giant's nape, she gathered her swords to her chest and prepared for her final strike.

The blades thrust with surgical precision into the center of the area that was the giants' weak point.

Mizuki disengaged the blades embedded in flesh from the handle of the device, gathered her legs and, taking advantage of the recoil, took a leap backward. The cables of the three-dimensional movement stretched, forming a perfect line between the grappling hooks still hooked in the giant's back and Mizuki's hands.

Before rewinding the cables, she waited for the giant's cable-drawn body to tilt backward; then she operated the device again and landed on the nape of the beast's neck, where she hung until, having reached a safe distance, she gained ground with a graceful leap.

With a thud, the giant fell, on its back, on the grass-covered ground. Immediately a thick blanket of smoke rose from the corpse, hiding from the gazes of unseen onlookers the figure of the soldier who, with bowed head, stood watching the freshly felled prey.

No, you are not. You are no different from us.

OOO

No one was talking.

The wagon advanced along the set route escorted by Levi squad, and accompanied only by the sounds of wheels and horses' hooves pounding on the ground.

Thanks to the cooperation of Eld, Gunther and the captain himself, they had managed to free Willy and overturn the wagon relatively quickly. The wounded man lay on it, hidden under a blanket and unconscious. Next to him sat curled up Mizuki, who periodically lifted the blanket to check the state of the wound; with each check, her gaze darkened slightly.

A chill caught her. Evening was falling. Mechanically, she clutched at her cloak. That same cloak that Captain Levi himself had retrieved from the ground, where the wind had deposited it, as he and the members of his team descended the hill to reach Mizuki, who was busy trying to overturn the wagon.

Proving that sometimes miracles do happen, she had escaped from the fight basically unscathed, apart from the bruises from the fall, and the lacerations on her palms caused by Ronald; the latter, however, she did not regard as wounds of war at all, dismissing them as a simple misunderstanding between colleagues.

After yet another checkup, Mizuki finally decided to speak up. "How much longer, to the walls?"

"One more hour," Eld said, with a certain reluctance in his voice, after making sure the captain would not answer.

Mizuki's gaze wandered until it met a back harnessed by the Wings of Freedom.

Levi rode in front of the group. Not once since they had resumed their march had he looked back.

After flipping the wagon over and laying Willy on it, the captain cast a single, long, terrible glance at Mizuki, crouched at the wounded man's side.

The world froze around her, and she gasped for breath.

Unable to sustain that vision one moment longer, she lowered her head, annihilated.

Not even the abnormal had frightened her in the same way; even her father, the most terrifying man she knew, had only once or twice managed to instill such awe in her body.

She had never seen him in that state - not even when they had fought, that now distant day, on the rooftops of the city of Tiburtina. At the time, Levi wore an ice mask devoid of the slightest opening: he felt no special emotion in rendering a fire-breathing boy harmless, and seemed to perform his duty with indifference, almost with boredom.

But now... a fury.

She could not describe him otherwise.

The ice mask still adorned the face she had come to know, but his eyes ... oh, his eyes offered a less than pleasant glimpse of what boiled inside the captain.

In those steel blades that he planted on her harbored so many emotions - annoyance, dismay, relief, upset, discomfort, accusations and recriminations, insults and, above all, a blind and deaf rage - that her head was spinning.

The ghost of an inner world so intense that it made her pale only lasted an instant, before the frost again took over every outward channel of communication in the captain's soul, hermetically shutting it off.

But so much was enough.

After Mizuki had lowered her head, overwhelmed, Levi threw her mud and dust-stained cloak in her face without a word, then climbed onto his horse.

Darkly, Mizuki understood that she had really screwed it up this time and cursed her bad luck. Of all the officers in the Corps, he of all people had to witness her challenge with fate? If it had been Hanje in his place, there would have been drama, but of an entirely different kind: in all likelihood, she would have jumped on her, first to scold her for not even making an attempt to catch the giant; then to pepper her with questions about what she had seen and felt in crawling under a very precious and very smelly giant's foot.

She forced herself to concentrate on her task. She lifted the blanket again to be completely sure of her decision. Then she cleared her throat. "Petra. How are you coping with the sight of blood?"

Oluo was quicker than his companion to answer. " Do you think that's a question to ask a soldier from the Survey Corps?"

"Great. Then jump on the wagon. I need assistance." Mizuki began to pull from her own backpack the necessities for the operation. Although she had forced herself not to think about it, she could not resist and, despite herself, looked up. No reaction. He continued to ignore her as he had done up to that moment.

Petra snuggled down on the other side of the wounded man. "What are we supposed to do?"

"The foot is getting gangrenous. I was hoping to perform the operation in the city, but there is no time. We have to do it here." With expert gestures, Mizuki cut off the pants of the uniform. And here's more taxpayer money going to waste. She then handed Petra a knife and a small bottle of pure alcohol, and pointed with a nod to the torch fixed to the side of the wagon. Before they resumed their march, Mizuki, already aware of her patient's critical situation, insisted on them starting a small fire and using it to light one of the portable flashlights supplied to the Corps. "Wash your hands with water, soak the blade in alcohol and then run it over the fire until it gets red-hot."

"I don't want to..." an inarticulate moan rose from Willy's lips.

Mizuki cursed as she passed a string around his leg and squeezed it with all her might. Damn, and to say she had hoped to at least spare him that suffering. "Shh, Willy. Pretty soon it will all be over."

"I don't want to," he repeated nevertheless, this time with more conviction. "Let me die. I don't want to become a cripple."

Mizuki's hands froze on the newly tightened knot. She decided to ignore him. He was delirious, that was all.

But he continued; he lifted his eyelids and brown irises sought Mizuki's face. "Ronald was right. I... I will be of no use, crippled as I am. My life is worthless. If I can't fight, if I can't die for the cause ... what good is it to survive?"

Petra held the alcohol-soaked scalpel over the flame, her expression totally lost, waiting for instructions from Mizuki. The latter let a long moment of silence pass. "Answer this question. Why can we of the Surbey Corps exist?"

At that moment, Willy was not the only one who was taken aback by the question. The entire team peered at her as if she had just started reciting poetry in another language. More than one thought that the parable of insanity inaugurated with the assault on foot and completely unarmed on the giant had reached its zenith with that rambling and seemingly completely out of context question.

"I don't... I don't understand."

"Because the Walls are there," she replied quietly, giving the lace another squeeze. "There are the Walls, which someone built. And how come we can go and fight outside? Because there are people in there who sew - and more importantly pay for - our clothes, build weapons and repair broken ones. Do we live on air and the desire for freedom? Do we move with the power of thought? Does our shit dissolve as if by magic, producing a nice clean smell? No, I don't think so. If scouting can work, it is because there are people behind the scenes who make sure we get a meal and a warm bed when we return. Contributing to the cause is not just throwing yourself on the front lines as cannon fodder. If you really think this is the answer, you'd better go hide and whine in some corner of the Gendarmerie Corps. We don't need idiots like that. Before you start whining that your life no longer has any meaning, and other such crap, try to put yourself in those people's shoes, and do what they do. Afterwards, if you are still convinced of what you said just now, I certainly won't be the one to stop you from getting out of the way; in fact, I'll even give you a hand. I can't stand unnecessary burdens. But a life is still a life. And I risked mine to save you. That fucking asshole Ronald hasn't earned the right to influence your choice. I did."

Her words exuded a strength and calmness that was inappropriate and almost disgraceful given the situation.

Willy did not reply. The drooping eyelids on his tired eyes began to tremble imperceptibly.

Mizuki shot an imperious glance at Petra. "Give him what's left of the alcohol to drink. He will need it anyway, whether he decides to accept the amputation or not."

Though after a moment's hesitation, Petra handed the sterilized knife to Mizuki and obeyed.

"I have the right to influence you, both because I almost got crushed to death under a giant to save you and because if you croak here I will feel guilty for the rest of my life. The night I rejected you, did you have sex with anyone?" asked Mizuki in an aseptic tone and as if they were talking about the dish to order for dinner at a restaurant, while with her free hand she retrieved some clean cloths from her saddlebag and handed them to Petra.

Oluo bit his tongue, even though he was not talking. Petra blushed to the tips of her hair. Eld spat, soiling his own horse's mane. Gunther could not hold back a laugh. And Willy prayed, for a moment, that he had died crushed by the giant.

"I spent that night stargazing, as was my intention. If I had died today, I would have been satisfied, with my last night. Some people, however, wish to spend it in the arms of someone; or so I was told. If you could not spend your last night as you wished, and you die now, I will feel guilty for the rest of my life. And I honestly don't like that so much. Do you understand me? If you really want to do me a favor, just survive and ... do what you have to do."

"With you?" stammered Willy in a slurred voice. The question, in all likelihood, was caused in part by the young man's state of physical prostration, in part by alcohol, and in good measure by the unquenchable hope for life that still clutched the chest panting in pain.

But she was all too quick to reply. "No, I'm sorry. I still don't care about these things. But, if you want, I'll help you find a girlfriend."

Levi raised a sigh deep and annoyed enough to be heard despite the din of the wagon and hooves. "What a fucking brat. This for sure will make him want to have his foot amputated."

Mizuki felt the knot gripping her stomach loosen, and despite the situation, she could not suppress a smile.

"He's... he's right, Mizuki. The heck with you!" echoed Gunther, after a moment's hesitation.

"You don't even know where tact belongs, huh?" sighed Eld.

"A man has his pride!" muttered Oluo.

"Oh, yeah?" Mizuki bent down until she came into Willy's field of vision. "So?"

"I-I want to have sex!" yelled the guy at the top of his lungs. "So you do what you have to!"

"Good answer. Here, put it in your mouth and squeeze hard, we don't want you to become like Oluo. At least we'll try to spare you this one." Mizuki slipped a folded cloth between his lips. After that she fluidly slid the blade down to graze his bare flesh, just below the lace. "Good. Here we go."

OOO

They reached the walls after an hour, in the early evening.

As always, they were greeted by the shouts of scorn and derision from the taxpayers, who had flocked to see how their money had been spent.

There they were, the walking dead, the insane, the eternal defeated.

Mizuki watched Trost's lights flicker before her eyes clouded with fatigue as she jumped from wagon to wagon to render first aid to the most seriously wounded.

The thirty-third expedition ended with a toll of nineteen dead and twenty-six wounded, seven of them serious, and marked the birth of a novel tavern legend about a recruit who shot down anomalies by popping out from under their buttholes.

* For these wonderful verses I refer to the musical genius of Snow Patrol in Open your eyes.