~Levi~

It was only a glimpse but I was certain I saw her. The clingy little girl always following Eren around. Wherever she was , naturally he would be there too which meant they hadn't listened to my fucking orders. I shot off already knowing from both the noise and the destruction that the Female had moved that way, towards Eren.

That fucking bitch.

I landed on a branch and watched the idiocy that was Mikasa attacking the strongest titan the survey Corps has come across since the Berserker. I flew to her side, grabbing her round the waist and tugging her away. She struggled, kicking and clawing at me, growling out sounds that barely sounded human. She was practically rabid, foaming at the mouth.

"Get yourself together!"

She'd never been like this before. The greatest amount of emotion I'd ever seen her express was the mild annoyance that rose whenever she was around her fellow cadets. She reached out, her arm waving frantically in the direction of the abnormal.

"EREN!"

My stomach sank.

Glancing over my shoulder I could just barely see the brown smudge pinched between the titans' fingers. All my breath escaped me at once and my body fell slack long enough to nearly collide with the trunk of a tree. Mikasa broke free, swinging away quickly and charging, eyes wild with fury and vengeance. I was tempted to join her but diving in blinded by emotion was the first thing basic training tells you not to do. I took a breath.

In.

Out.

Go.

I caught up to her quickly, yelling out instructions. She howled when I told her not to kill it. I snapped back that the titans' death wasn't the priority at the moment.

What mattered was Eren.

We swung together. A raging storm filled with shrieking winds and twisting tornadoes. Our blades shone like lightning and struck, the beasts' bellows following like thunder. We slashed and tore through ligament and muscle alike until finally the hand fell limp.

Eren fell.

I couldn't reach him, too busy dealing with the struggling bitch who had dared to try and take my Eren away. I watched out of the corner of my eye how his hair, though matted it was, whipped with the wind as he plummeted to the earth.

Mikasa caught him and I could breath again.

She didn't wait for my signal, already hauling him away, determined to keep him safe. I was left to incapacitate, to buy them time. Looking at the giant beneath my feet who had slaughtered too many and was willing to kill more, I didn't think it'd be too hard.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

~Armin~

"Do you know?"

She stood pressed against the door, listening. The expedition was over, the few carts that had managed to survive had just moments ago rode into HQ, weighed down by the heavy burden of all the bodies they bore. Even though the carts were filled, barely making room for the injured, the death count was even greater than it appeared. The skin around my eyes creased as I squeezed them shut, wishing that I could forget the bright splatters against the dark colours of the forest floor. I forced my eyes open.

"Know what?"

I brushed very real dirt off my pants, picking at a spot that seemed just a shade too red to be anything but-

"About Eren."

Ah.

She scratched at the wood by the lock as if she would tear it from the very door with only her nails. If I were being honest, she probably would.

I couldn't look at her face, so desperate was she to get to Eren that I imagined she'd resemble a child possessed. Terrifying.

"You did."

I nodded.

"How?"

She wasn't scared. She wasn't even mad or hurt. She just wanted to know Eren, to help him. She couldn't help him if she didn't even know how he worked.

"I don't even know myself."

She snorted because how could I, Armin, not know something. It irked me as well. The lack of knowledge in the area which was Eren caused my brain to boil but I'd accepted long ago that some things just aren't ready to be understood.

"He just...is."

It was the most unscientific thing I had ever said but I honestly didn't know what else to say.

"Why won't he wake up?"

She shouldered the door but it stayed put.

"Aren't they supposed to be good healers?"

"He is."

She shot me a look that said clearly why then was he still unconscious. I shrugged.

"He's probably a little weak and needs the rest. I can't imagine he's had much to eat around here."

Mikasa paused.

"Eat."

I swallowed.

"Yeah...since he's a-"

The door opened causing Mikasa to stumble into a frowning Hanji. Hanji blinked at us, glanced behind their shoulder and smiled.

"You're Eren's friends?"

I nodded, leaning ever so slightly to get a glimpse of inside. I caught a flash of dark hair and a furrowed brow before Hanji shifted into my line of sight.

"I'm sorry but we're putting this room under quarantine. No unauthorized personnel are allowed to enter."

They shut the door firmly behind them. I protested, my voice rising till I was certain most of HQ could hear me. I turned to Mikasa, searching for support from Eren's biggest fan, instead I found myself alone in the corridor. The skin on my arms prickled and the hair stood on end.

Nothing felt right.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

~Levi~

The second Hanji closed the door behind them I fell forwards, my hands reaching out for his and my head landing on his shoulder. I shook, the overwhelming urge to release the grime covered hands fought against the need to touch, to hold. The need to know that he was okay.

My will ran out, my fingers unfurled from his and wrapped themselves in my handkerchief. I leaned and placed the smallest of pecks on his head but quickly retracted.

I hated it, this, me.

I could barely stand to touch him, to comfort him when now was when he needed it most! I clenched my hands, the fabric of the handkerchief wrinkled and shook along with them. Seeing him there, laying as if dead on a bed meant for the injured, I couldn't even hold his hand. The image of Eren gripped between the fingers of that abomination hung before my eyes and I gaged at the thought of what could be.

The chair creaked as I leaned back, resigning myself to waiting and watching. The sight of his matted hair made my eye twitch. I pushed my chair away.

Fuck.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Reports have come in that the Female titan had been fighting with another titan."

Hanji leaned forward while the rest of the table leaned back. I kept my eyes rooted on the grainy surface, thinking back to that time where Eren had been the only thing to matter.

I remembered the smoking pile just to the left of the blond menace.

"It seems that the Berserker has returned."

Hanji was drooling beside me, their eyes crazed behind the fogged glass of their goggles. They looked ecstatic, overwhelmingly enthusiastic. Beside them I felt my breath evacuate my lungs, my intestines curling into tighter knots and my brain falling back into that darkness I thought I'd been freed of.

The meeting passed with talks of hardening skin and higher cognitive functions. That didn't matter. Not to me. What mattered was the cold curling around my insides. What mattered was the heat boiling in my gut. What mattered was the plan blooming in my mind, branching and forming till a tree, twisted and gnarled, came to be. The beauty of nature could not cover the ugliness of my vengeance. The thoughts and ideas hiding in the bark of the tree like a hive of burrowing insects.

More than ever I wished I had the strength to touch and to hold, to seek comfort even if the comfort was covered in sweat and dirt.

"Reported casualties?"

My breath paused. I knew who had been lost, made it a point to keep track of the numbers that left and the poor saps that found their way back. Petra was gone. It unnerved me that the thought caused only a small amount of discomfort. Had she really meant so little to me? Was she simply a favor for a fellow soldier? No, I couldn't believe that she was only that.

But why then didn't I feel anything?

"Ackerman reported that she saw the Berserker die but this thing has died before so stay alert." Erwin closed his speech, accented by Hanji's screech of capturing it alive. The sky had darkened during the meeting. I couldn't bring myself to join Eren and his filth.

More often than naught I detested myself.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

~ Eren ~

I had underestimated her and I hated myself for it. With her still alive she would be able to come back and strike harder than last time.

I stared up at the ceiling, scratching absently at the rough sheets covering me. I had grown complacent in my domestic life, too used to easy jokes and simple scraped knees. The reality of the situation had never been so clear after such a defeat. My misjudgment almost lead to my death. My weakness almost lead to the loss of my control.

I'd used everything I could, hardening my skin at opportune moments, calling upon strength I knew I didn't have. But the echoing emptiness at my core slowed me too much to succeed.

I sniffed the air, momentarily reveling in the fresh perfume of delicious flesh pumped till juicy with blood. A revelation later showed me buried under my sheets in an attempt to stopper the scent but my nostrils continued to flare, refusing to surrender to my want of being normal, instead falling prey to my need to eat.

"Eren?"

I hadn't heard the door open. The small voice just a touch louder than the quiet steps almost like a ghost's. I curled tighter around the offending part of my anatomy that demanded my child's bones.

"Are you awake?"

I didn't speak. Silence followed, heavy and expectant but I couldn't open my mouth to answer for fear of what I'd trick her into doing.

"Look, please."

Her sentence confused me yet was so simple in structure. What was she showing me? I couldn't look.

I heard her, her boots coming closer, her breath just a hair quicker than her usual. I suddenly found myself deprived of the sheet, fresh air and uncorked scents rushed me all at once leaving me groaning and whitening my knuckles in the folds of my torn shirt in a vain attempt to restrain myself. The air smelled like sunshine and blood, paradise to a being such as I, scrumptious.

I loved it.

Something warm and wet nuzzled my exposed brow. My head shot up at the familiar stench of death.

"Please," she said, arm extended holding a bundle of leaking rags. A fold came undone and there, as clear as the horror on my face, was the bent and bruised finger of a man. "Eat."

I stared.

There was no trace of blood on her clothes, no worry on her face. She practically smiled as she moved the bundle closer.

"What have you done..."

It wasn't really a question for I knew already what she had done but how, how could my beautiful, innocent child do such a thing?

"I wanted to use a bad man. Knew you wouldn't like it if I used a good person."

I swallowed away my drool, forcing my eyes to move from the bundle.

"He tried to touch me."

She huffed out a harsh breath.

"He was a bad man. Eat."

The bundle was pushed to hover just under my nose, my jaw worked with the need to sink my teeth in the flesh.

"I d-don't eat people, Mikasa."

"I saw."

Two words froze my restless jaw better than my will ever could.

"You-"

"It's okay. Eat."

She seemed to grow impatient with me, unwrapping the limb more for easier access.

"This is wrong!" I almost shouted, controlling myself at the last second. It wouldn't do to have soldiers swarming the room when Mikasa held a severed limb in her hand.

She shook her head.

"It's not wrong if it helps Eren."

I attempted to stutter out a counter argument but was silenced by the complete confusion coating her words. "How could it be wrong if it helps Eren?"

I stared, mouth open in astonishment as I saw for the first time how warped her mind had become. She took advantage of my vulnerability and shoved a few fingers inside.

I'd underestimated another.

It was instinct that snapped my jaw closed to crunch the bones and suckle on the blood. The empty echo became a raging roar and suddenly the arm was in my hands, meat and flesh torn to shreds in my mouth. I gnawed on the bones and slurped at the blood that ran from my fingers down the warm skin of my arm.

I had yet to be filled.

I turned to Mikasa, sniffing at her scent before I realized who she was to me. I buried my desire and gripped my hands together. Flakes of blood rolled and crinckled between my fingers as they twiddle and twirled in an attempt to distract myself. I lowered my gaze in shame, watching my fingers dance.

She'd seen me.

She knew.

She wasn't scared.

"Do you have any more of him?"

I asked shyly.

She smiled as she raised a bag I hadn't noticed. It looked heavy.

"I cut him up for your convenience."