To You, From This World to the Next

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Summary: A blasé god of death roamed the earth for centuries, seeking for something that would alleviate his constant boredom. It was by chance that he laid his eyes upon him—that being that will turn his mundane life upside-down.

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The battle was long and arduous—both sides have had their casualties. On Erwin and Carla's side, the soldiers and the nymphs fall to the depths of Tartarus, their very life force seeming like a torrent of falling stars throughout the underworld. On Levi and the Cerberus's side, the fallen souls of the dead clawed at any soldier that came within their grasp, dragging them down to the pits of Styx. The Titans grabbed at the harpies hovering around, and threw them at any soldier who tried to attack Levi, earning Erwin's ire that the harpies were supposed to be on Pixis's side—

"Not on my domain, they're not!" Levi yelled, as he clawed at an anthousai trying to get to his feet, sending her spiralling to Tartarus—"Send them away, Erwin! There's no need for this!" An arrow zinged past Levi's right cheek, chipping away a part of his mask, exposing his face more as Erwin yelled at the nymphs, telling them not to attack the death god—

From above him, a quivering Armin hovered beside a furious Mikasa, clutching the bow and arrow in his hands as he mumbled apologies to the death god below. The goddess aimed her arrow at Levi, and something heavy chucked her in the face, and her hold on her arrow and bow slackened.

"A bag?" Mikasa wondered out loud, and looked down to see Hange the gondolier swinging another heavy bag in her hand as Acheron's wailing souls of the dead pushed and led her boat in front of the gates leading to Levi's throne room, shielding the death god from the onslaught.

"It's the payment of the dead souls! There's more where that came from, Goddess." Hange shrieked, guffawed, and aimed the bag of coins at Mikasa once more, she threw the bag overhead, and hit it with her oar, sending the bag flying, only for Mikasa to recuperate and shot the bag immediately, causing its contents to spill over their heads, and for the coins to fall on their skin—and Hange's laugh pierced their ears as Mikasa and Armin swatted the coins that burned their skin—

"Where are you going, O Deities of the Heavens? Get—back—here!" Hange swung the oar of her boat on the river and raised it up, causing the souls stuck there to rise and meld together as a pillar. The gondolier immediately climbed up the groaning pillar, stepping on each soul as she left black mist behind, and raised her oar, aiming it straight at Armin's back, only for Erwin to intervene as he raised his sword against her.

"Erwin? You dare to interfere?" she gritted out, hissing as she pushed the oar now becoming heavier against Erwin's sword. "Have you forgotten, Erwin? This is my home, and I will not let you destroy it!" She pulled the oar away as it changed in her hand, the black cypress wood turning into something silver and black as it lengthened in her hold, the wood turning into metal as Hange grins at the war god—

"A scythe?"

Hange breathes out a laugh as her eyes widen at the confused god, and leers at his face, "I'll have you know, Erwin. I take pride in the mortals on earth calling me not just a ferrywoman, but a demon of the underworld." She shrieks as he raises the scythe against him, laughing manically as Erwin braces for an attack, only for Hange to wail as she kicked him in the torso and used his shoulder as leverage to jump and snatch the escaping Armin in mid-air, grabbing him by the wing—

—and dragging him straight to Tartarus.

"Armin!" Erwin yelled, and tried to reach out to the winged god, only, it was too late as the gondolier and Armin sank deep in the river of souls, devouring them completely.

From the shoreline, Levi looked at Erwin with a smile.

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Armin struggled to breathe under the mass of intangible limbs clambering all over him, and he kept screaming under the searing touches of the souls on his immortal skin. He swam up to the waters, gulped for air, and heard a cackle behind him as soon as he got up from the souls to breathe.

Blue eyes looked to where Hange the gondolier stood on the shoreline, cackling madly away as she pointed at Armin's struggles. The winged god gasped and spluttered the water that had slipped past his lips as he swam to the shoreline, his eyes looking mad at the chortling ferrywoman holding her scythe-turned-oar.

Armin gasped for air as soon as he reached the shore, and steadied himself as he placed his hands on his knees, hissing as he assessed the damage done to his skin and wings, and saw the marks of the souls' hands littered all over him. In front of him, the gondolier smiled down at him, her brown hair in disarray from the waters.

Armin blinked away the droplets of water from his eyes, "You're fine."

Hange blinked, and looked at herself, then back at Armin, and grinned, "Of course, I am! I am a demon of the underworld, after all!" She laughed at Armin's confusion, and clapped twice, "Stand up straight, O Winged God of the Earth. I'll give you a tour!"

"Eh—?"

Hange wasted no time as she dragged Armin by the arm and led him away from the shorelines and into the entrance of Tartarus, where the fallen gods have been, rebuilding themselves from their tattered selves, waiting to be reborn. Hange held his hand throughout, smiling as she explained the things around them—

"—on our left, we see some of the soldiers that just died. See their bodies on the floor? That'll take eons for them to recover fully." She giggled, skipping as a soldier held his hand up to her, asking for help, only for Hange to glare at the soldier who had been under Erwin's command. She huffed, and pointed ahead, "That's another great place, Armin!"

"Gondolier Hange, wai—"

Hange didn't wait. She ran and hopped her way to the cave that could be seen a few kilometers away, humming in glee as she dragged Armin behind her like a ragdoll.

They trekked up a hill filled with golden dust, and Armin, in his fit of curiosity, asked absentmindedly, "Golden…?"

"Ichor," said Hange, grinning she hopped on a rock and made Armin do the same, "from the gods that didn't make it."

Armin gulped, paled, and heaved. He knew that gods could die if they were either repeatedly depleted of their energy to regenerate, if they have fatal wounds, if they couldn't find their way out of Tartarus, or if they willingly gave up their entire beings as gods—

He remembered the soldier from just minutes ago, clawing his way out of a pit he had fallen into, and not just him, but the other soldiers and nymphs as well, who have fallen from battle and made their way here, trying to find a way or, in the cases of the nymphs, just waiting for an eon to pass for them to fully regain their selves.

An eon. That is a thousand million years.

Armin felt his heart stop as he looked at the golden dust he stepped on.

These gods have to wait that long to be reborn—

"We're here!" Hange cheered, finally letting go of Armin as she took in a lungful of air. "Smell that molten lava just simmering in your nostrils!"

The winged god inadvertently took a whiff, and blanched. It burned his nose just taking a whiff of it—like miasma clawing at his throat. He almost complained, when Hange talked over him once more, smiling.

"I bet this war would be over if we just get down to the root cause of all this, right? I found out from one of the Cerberus that the root cause is here."

Armin looked dazed as she glanced at the gondolier, saying nothing but an offhanded, 'Huh?' before being dragged once more to the entrance of a large, looming cave housed with shackles hanging overhead.

Armin's wings immediately folded close to him, and his jaw clenched as the heat seemed to grow hotter against his skin, and tried to ask Hange, but was silenced with a finger to his lips.

All the while, he wondered why he hadn't ended up like the soldiers and the nymphs from the outside, dead and turned into ichor dust. He looked at their linked hands, which seemed to be emitting black mist—

Armin almost made a sound at the back of his throat, and Hange glanced at him.

"Stay quiet. He'll be mad."

Dazed from the heat, Armin replied, "Eh?"

Hange smiled, and led Armin inside the dark cave, illuminated by only the faint light from the outside and the faint, red-orange glow from the innermost bowels of the cave—

The stench of the miasma outside seemed to dissipate as Armin took in the faint smell of the sea and something oddly earthy—

"We're here," Hange whispered, and stepped into the deepest part of the cave, where light from its entrance could be seen, and where the faint sounds of talking could be heard bouncing off the stoned, moss-filled walls.

Hange led Armin inside, still not letting go of his hand, and exclaimed, "Keith, look who I got today!"

From the inside, Armin could see a variety of weapons hanging from the walls and the ceiling—spears, swords, axes, cudgels, weapons for both man and god were there. On the far side of the moss-filled cavern was a pool of molten lava and a hearth. In the middle of the cavern sat a large anvil big enough for a person to lie on, and beside it, a hammer and a pot filled with arrows and a bow. He looked down, and saw fresh grass with flowers peeking from the cracks of the ground.

Standing in front of the anvil, hammering the head of an arrow, was the blacksmith of the underworld himself, Keith, standing there with his eyes darkened and hollow as he glanced behind him to see the gondolier with her oar.

Keith huffed, and turned back to hammering the tip of the arrow, inspecting it this way and that, "Your oar got thrown into Lethe by Levi again?"

Hange giggled, and smiled broadly, "Nah, though I do admire that it turned into a stronger scythe this time. And I even brought a present with me!"

Interest piqued, Keith hummed as he put the arrow on the anvil and faced the gondolier, "Hange, I swear, if this is another one of your pets—" Keith blinked, stopping all his thoughts as the winged god peeked from behind the gondolier, looking timid in his presence. Keith then snapped his eyes to her, "What is an Athenian god doing here?"

Hange grinned, and tugged Armin into full view, but hadn't released his hand, "I should ask you the same. What is he doing here?"

From behind Keith, a figure appeared, dressed in a loose, golden stola that reached down to his ankles, was a being covered in black smoke, its very essence stemming from the skin of the one with the beryl eyes.

Armin gaped, words failing to cooperate with his mouth, and choked out a sob as the being smiled at him, greeting him with a wave—the black tendrils swaying from his every move.

"Eren?"

The Archer smiled, "Good day, Armin."

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The battle waged on in the underworld, with Erwin's side losing nymphs and soldiers while Levi's side dealt with the corpses of harpies and the spirits of Furies battling with their intangible wisps. Titans Kuchel and Kenny swallowed up the winged creatures that flew their way.

As soon as the first corpses of the dead tasted the waters of death below, Kuchel, with her very form bound to the depths of the underworld itself, opened her vacant eyes from the river of souls of Cocytus and roared, causing some of the rocks from above to fall down on Erwin's army, pushing them down to the mouth of the river and sending them straight to Tartarus at a staggering rate. Those who tried to avoid the rocks were met with a torrent of the Furies' energy binding themselves to the godly bodies of the soldiers and nymphs, dragging them to the dark void above, where Kenny, the devourer of the gods, loomed overhead, his arms and feet chained to the vast sky. With his wide mouth that was the darkness, he awaited the Furies to deliver the soldiers and nymphs to their demise, taking everything in as he, too, roared and tried in vain to move from the very shackles that bound him to the sky of the underworld, shaking the very foundations of the underworld and the earth above—

The demigods, the soldiers, and the nymphs howled as they got swept into the darkness that was Kenny. And when he closed his gaping mouth, a torrent of golden dust fell to the ground and the rivers below—

Levi hissed as a demigod grazed the death god's skin with his sword, and cursing as the death god's skin regenerated immediately from the black smoke.

Gone was Erwin's previous order for Levi not to be touched, for as soon as the anthousai had grabbed onto the death god's skin and tried to attack him, all of Erwin's soldiers and Mikasa's legion of the nymphs and the urging of Carla's anger caused them to attack the death god, ignoring Erwin's order as they dove into chaos and madness, rushing to attack anyone that resided in the underworld—the harpies, the intangible Furies, the Cerberus—

Behind the war god, Carla seethed, her teeth gritting as she whipped out a flame from her hand, the very flame that she had used when she had tried to search for Eren all over Greece and Italy, and sent a ball of flame straight to Levi as Mikasa aimed an arrow straight to the death god's heart—

—only to be stopped by a wave of souls from below, splashing the flame into nothingness.

Mikasa stilled, and she and Carla looked down, to where Kuchel the Titan had emerged from the river, her entire being forming into the very murky waters of the rivers, her hair formed in long waves, her eyes devoid of anything but seemed to flow tears, her lips set agape with constant wails, her lower half bound to the river of souls below.

Carla quivered as the flame from her hand faded, and she stared into the hollow eyes of the embodiment of the rivers of both the underworld and the earth, "Kuchel! You know fully well what it feels like to have your child taken away from you, so please! Understand me, too! The pain of dealing with the loss of my child!"

Kuchel closed her mouth. The wails stopped, and she turned around, to where Levi stood proudly on the shore despite his small size, the tendrils of smoke curling around his form. The vacant eyes widened, however, when she realized that something was amiss—

She strode over to the death god and went down on one knee, and tried to touch Levi with the tip of her water-formed finger, not wanting to accidentally hurt him—

She turned around and hissed at the gods overhead, her fingers clawing on the shore beneath Levi's feet upon realized that indeed, Levi's mask, which had once covered his entire head, had now been cracked to the point that half of his face could be seen. It was an atrocity.

Kuchel roared at the gods and went back to the middle of the river, her vacant eyes narrowing as she raised her hand and gathered the souls of the dead to her palm, ready to strike at the very being who had dared hurt her son—

Levi stood frozen and gasped at the realization, "No, Mother! St—"

"Stop, Levi!"

The death god halted, and looked to his far left, where Hange rowed her boat in earnest, gritting her death as the souls of the dead tried to clamber on her oar. Along with her was Armin, whom he had thought had died; Ymir with her bow and arrow at the ready; Historia, clinging onto the edge of the boat; and—

"Eren!" Levi yelled, discarding all premise as he stepped on the waters, and, realizing he'd be wet, he clicked his tongue and levitated to where they were, his arms outstretched and ready to embrace the hunter.

Ymir and Historia gave the death god a sidelong glance. They frowned upon seeing Levi's feet meeting the wooden floorboards, and looked away as soon as it crumbled under his touch.

Historia closed her eyes as a tear fell.

Levi, overjoyed at seeing Eren, had his arms open for him, only to stop midway as a look of fear crossed the death god's face, and he quivered, his arms falling to his sides as he fell to his knees, ignoring the aghast complaints of Hange.

"Forgive me, Eren. Forgive me—I—shouldn't have left you there alone—where you could—"

Eren bit his inner lip, and smiled down at the death god. He clasped his hands tightly in front of him, soothing his thumb at the back of his hand, nodding, and failing to fight back a wave of tears.

Kuchel, who had been ready to throw a barrage of soul-filled water to the gods above, paused as she looked at her son kneeling in front of the hunter. She released the waters from her grasp, letting it flow in a torrent of rain below as she went up over to the boat, leaving Carla to scream overhead, ready to attack her once more, until—

"Mother, stop it!"

Carla halted at the voice, and squinted.

"…Eren?"

The hunter looked away from his mother, his brows furrowed, and seemed to be frozen in place, something that Levi thought was strange. The death god asked Eren what was wrong, and simply shook his head, refusing to say anything.

Kuchel's form knelt by the ferryboat, observing them, observing Eren closely, and she reached out her hand to the hunter, only for Carla to come swooping in with a flame in her hand—

"Mother, I said stop it!"

The flame in Carla's hand vanished in an instant, and she gaped at her son, looking scandalized, and yelled, "What's gotten into you! I haven't seen you in months! You got kidnapped and then you tell me to stop these beings who took you away—"

"I wasn't kidnapped!"

The battle in the skies stilled, the heavens of the underworld ceased to shake, and the souls in the rivers seemed to have stopped moaning in agony. All eyes fell on the hunter and Eren didn't like it one bit.

The tendrils of smoke coiled around his form, rivalling the wreckage that Levi's aura seemed to be doing with the floorboards of the ferry. Under Eren's feet, the wreckage on the wood stopped, and he bit his lip. Levi's hands remained planted on the floorboard, waiting for the hunter to speak, and when he did, it was not something that he expected—

"Mother, Levi… No one may touch me anymore."

Levi blinked, the slightest bit of his mask from the edges of his right temple falling to his knees. "What do you—"

"Allow us to explain," Ymir announced, clearing her throat as she looked down at the death god with a stoic face. "You're going to need to sit down at this one."

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The winged gods, the nymphs, and the soldiers of Olympus lied in waiting outside the underworld's throne room. Surrounding them were the harpies and the Furies, lying in wait and waiting for their attack. High in the sky above them, Kenny stared down at them, looming as he, too, waited for their next move. Everyone was at a standstill as Kuchel guarded the entrance to where Levi resided. The death god had allowed the party directly involved with the case of Eren, and allowed no one else.

The Cerberus stood in front of the gates, with Petra missing from them.

Perched on the Ionics outside the throne room were three ravens, tilting their heads and cawing at the gods every now and then.

Inside, voices raised and boomed all around the walls that currently had grass and moss and flowers as a forlorn-looking Eren sat in the middle of the floor, surrounded by Erwin, Carla, Mikasa, Hange, Historia, Ymir, and Armin. Sitting on the throne was Levi, his face pale and his eyes behind the mask wide in disbelief.

Historia had her head down, her eyes closed as she concluded her tale—of how Eren had come back to life once more during the onslaught of the Olympians against the underworld, of how Petra had hidden the hunter in the deepest parts of Tartarus, and how Eren could never touch anyone without hurting themselves in return—

"Eren, when he was brought back to life once more, there needed to be a balance." She looked up to Levi, who sat still, and seemed to hold his breath as he hung to her every word. She continued, "During the time Eren was asleep here in this very room, death god Levi kept holding Eren's hand, and—" She directed her gaze to where Carla stood beside her son, and stifled a sound of surprise, "—and from his touch, just his touch alone, his…" She paused, glanced at Levi, and wordlessly gestured his hand outward, urging her to go on. "The power that death god Levi had from his touch of bringing death to everything seems to have… transferred… to Eren's psyche, and seemed to have ingrained within his very bones."

"But I already gave him my protection before, what makes it different now?" Levi retorted, huffing in annoyance at Historia's hesitant explanation.

Ymir almost stepped in, ready to counter, but Historia stopped her and shook her head. The goddess of life continued, and forced a smile. "The only difference now is—if you, Levi, are going to touch Eren, he… he will be hurt. Hurt in the same way the pomegranate had to him. But your touch won't kill him, that I assure you, it's just—"

Historia bit her lip, and clutched her hands together, looking apprehensively at Eren, who still remained looking at the floor with sadness. "It's just… you won't be able to touch him like before, Little Death. And in turn—"

The air around the death god seemed to stop, the tendrils around him seemed to cease swirling all over his body as he finally stood up from his seat, tumbling towards Eren—

—a piece of his mask from his right brow chipped away to the floor as Levi breathed, "And in turn what?"

Eren choked on his breath as he lowered his head more, and held back tears as he muttered, "And in turn, when I am to return to the world above, everything I touch there will wither and die."

Carla and Mikasa gasped as Erwin took a step back from the boy, wide-eyed at his utterance. The war god looked at Armin, and asked to confirm if it were true. Armin looked away, clutching the bow and arrow he held to his chest, and nodded in silence.

Eren felt hollow as he noticed all eyes were on him, the very air around him feeling heavy and stifling his lungs. He didn't know what to do or how to reverse it. Everything had been explained to him the moment he woke up and saw Historia beside him.

"Eren, say it isn't so!" Carla wailed, knelt before her son, and hugged him, only to scream and recoil upon meeting his skin. Her eyes widened as she looked at her arms and her torso, and saw it looking like it had been burned under the sun. She looked at her child, who now shed tears as he looked away.

"It is so, Mother," Eren muttered, and he gritted his teeth and held his breath. There was no turning back now as he faced her once more. "I accept my fate, if this is what had to be done."

Carla gaped at her child, aghast, "What—"

"If this is the fate that has been brought upon me to be with Levi, then so be it. I gladly accept, even if it means giving up a part of me. Because if I didn't give anything up, this whole war could start all over again—because I would refuse to return to the world above, because he is here. But—if I gave him up, then I could return to you, but I would never be the same again. And so I made a pact with the goddess, here," Eren declared, beating his chest despite the tears he tried to hold back. "In my heart, I made a pact with her, for me to be with both of you, even if it would bring me pain. I was in limbo, and couldn't speak, but my innermost heart had a wish, and when I woke up, the price had already been paid." He had already accepted it the moment that he had awakened and had seen what happened to him when he had tried to touch his arms that have been held by Levi's talons—he, too, had recoiled.

Everything felt so far away, when he looked at Levi's face. And the hunter could've sworn that he saw a tear fell along with the flakes of his shattered mask.

Another piece of his mask fell to the floor with a resounding crack, and Levi reached out his hand to the forlorn hunter, his silver eyes dampened with tears—

"I can't… hold you anymore…?"

Outside the throne room, the three ravens cawed and flapped their wings, their scarlet eyes narrowing at the creatures and the gods that housed the underworld—their cries resembling that of maniacal laughter and a pained cry as they flew away into the distance.

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The realm of Erebus flourished with life as Eren, decked in his golden stola and surrounded with the ebony smoke that protected him, graced the fields with his presence, often stepping on a piece of cracked earth before smiling as he watched grass, flowers, and the dead trees bloom to life that even the Furies, the very spirits of punishment and harbingers of plagues and famine, flittered on some of the newly bloomed flora. The harpies, known to be destructive within the underworld, flapped their wings overhead, cautious at some of the trees that now held green foliage, while some held fruits that were unfamiliar to the underworld.

A cautious harpy screeched and nudged its nose at a nearby tree, and, seeing that the branch wouldn't break, it screeched once more, glanced at Eren with its beady eyes, then looked at its companion with another shriek. The bird with the woman's head sat on the tree, and urged the other harpy to do the same. They both sat there, looking down on a laughing Eren as the hunter kept stepping on land that had once been arid and desolate.

In the fields of Enna, even the souls of the departed seemed to appreciate the additional life the hunter had brought for them, as the wildflowers bloomed and grow and the dandelions flew upon being stepped on—

As Eren played with one of the Furies, a flock of ravens flew from a distance, circling the boy unawares. These birds cawed as they perched on trees that were far from the harpies, often tilting their heads as they looked at the lively scene before them. Such a scene had never once happened in the underworld for eons, but now—

"Enjoying everything, I assume?"

The hunter turned around, and looked jovial for a moment as he ran up to the god of death with his arms open, only to fall short when he came near him, and remembered what couldn't be—so he stood in front of him, smiling tight-lipped as he fiddled with his hands in front of him, biting his lip as he blinked repeatedly.

"You're here," Eren whispered, his voice airy as he tried to catch up with his breath.

The distant cawing of the ravens faded away as Levi took a step closer to the hunter, to which Eren retaliated with a step back—and Levi stopped.

"We can't," Eren sobbed, "not anymore—"

Levi looked at their feet, where withered grass met fresh flowers.

He had just gotten Eren back from the world above, to where the hunter had returned to his mother—to where Eren himself had covered the very land at his feet with death, littering everything he had touched into ash and withered corpses. There on earth, when Eren remained with Carla, Eren had brought nature to its death—the trees withered with their fallen leaves of gold and red and brown, the petals on the flowers fell one by one, the grass laid flat on the ground, trodden, as the animals of the earth scampered from the hunter's wintry touch.

That had been Eren's life in the world above every three months for the past decade. He could never touch anyone in the world above without them falling into a withered form, or leaving him alone for his cold presence. Gone was Eren's once vibrant life on earth, as he became the harbinger of the change of another season—that which came to be known as autumn. It was the price the hunter paid to be with both Levi and Carla.

And whenever Eren left the world above, he was to return to Levi in the underworld, leaving the earth above in a white death for another three months, during which Carla left nature in barrenness in mourning for his son until his return.

True to their word, the Fates' prophecy came true. Over the years, wars have been happening along with the changing of the seasons that bore no fruit on earth. People went into wars and fought over food during the times of the white death, struggling to survive as Carla left the mortals to reside in Olympus, watching over the humans from afar as she waited for three months to pass.

Such was the power of the Fates who didn't bring the now-immortal to death, as they, in their raven forms, circled the underworld and basked in the fields of nature and life that Eren had to offer. There, on the other side of the seams, were Reiner, Bertolt, and Annie, slack-jawed and awestruck at the endless sight of green and flourishing colors in the bleakness of the underworld, that even the very souls of the dead in the rivers that Hange travelled on a daily basis hummed as they swam endlessly, where even Kuchel the Titan and the embodiment of the rivers of death cried and graced the rivers with new waters upon seeing what the hunter had offered to her son.

There in the underworld, the Fates could see the home they had once been in when they used to be mortals on earth. Even for just a blink of an eye, they could return to where they have once lived—

A raven followed the hunter and the death god closely, cawing high in the sky as a tear fell to the grass below.

The mortal-turned-immortal hunter and the undying death god were never meant to be, with their very selves being the complete opposites—

If Eren had lost nothing, then this world of life in the underworld couldn't be gained. It was a balance, to keep the gods in place.

It was the perfect price for the hunter to pay.

"Maybe we cannot anymore, but I still want to stay with you, only you alone can calm me down and bring me back to life from my dead self."

Levi raised his hand to Eren's face, the talons barely touching his skin, and smiled as the smoke that the death god had passed on to the hunter entwined in wisps, coiling in weaves, as both of them could never touch one another.

"You and I exist. We're together. But I could never hold you anymore without me hurting you, or without you hurting me," Levi lamented, his hand still ghosting over Eren's cheek.

—but the Fates held a small consolation for the hunter and the death god, for bringing their home to the world below, even for a short period of time.

Eren laughed, its sound empty to Levi's ears. He could see almost the entirety of the god's face now, save for his nose and brows. Yet, he never told him that, fearing of incurring further pain for Levi. And so he mustered his brightest smile, "I could never hold you, but I could see you, and I could be with you. Isn't that enough for the two of us?"

Levi said nothing, and merely smiled, and looked down at their hands surrounded with black smoke.

They walked like this, standing side by side, close, but not too close, as they left both life and death in their wake, the very grass they walked on being split into two—fresh and decayed—under the dark sky.

As the raven cawed and flew above them, Eren looked at it in a silent wonder, and thought about how he had once longed for wings to soar above the skies—he didn't get that wish, but he had gained something more in place of what he had lost.

As the raven flew away, Eren cried, and fell to his knees as Levi looked ahead, staring at the Fate disguised as a bird.

"'Each of us is always seeking a half that matches him', was it…"

Levi looked down to where Eren knelt, and muttered as he sat beside him, "We are now both Life and Death, Eren. We now know what it is to be like the other." He looked at he bereaved hunter, and wanted to wipe his tear, but couldn't.

"We're now doomed to live together in separation," Eren lamented as he saw a couple of harpies screeching overhead. "Together but not fully together. I can't even make flower wreaths for you anymore without me having cuts when I place them on your head," he sniffled, wiping away his tears, and Levi almost patted his head, but stopped halfway.

The death god placed his hand back to his side, and observed his talons. An idea popped up to his mind, and he looked at the hunter who had by now ceased his crying. "A thought passed over me, and I couldn't help but wonder and want it to come into fruition, now that I've thought of it."

Curious, Eren blinked at him, "What is it? Tell me."

Levi nodded to himself, looked away with his mouth parted, looking at something from afar, his eyes searching for something that he couldn't name. A few moments passed, and Eren was about to call his attention once more when—

"Become my queen."

The surprise in Eren's face was apparent as Levi looked at him, and it morphed into that of laughter, and a new onslaught of tears of delight as the hunter nodded fervently, and was about to hug him when he realized what he was about to do, and he sat back, and laughed.

The joy on Eren's face was evident, his teal eyes springing forth new tears every now and then, even as he tried to wipe them away. Levi, too, laughed, at his own proposal, and the sudden words he had said—

"Surely, the thought of you being married to me would not bring you fear?" he laughed, smiling at the way Eren looked at him with flushed cheeks and a too-wide grin.

The hunter giggled, and showed him his pearly teeth, "You don't scare me, King Levi. Husband Levi… whatever. I'm telling you, there is nothing on earth that would scare me. So—"

He crept closely to the god's masked face, and it surprised Levi at best.

The god's mask cracked, and under Eren's playful gaze, the hunter smirked.

"Show me what being the queen of the underworld and being married to you means. Now."

.

A/N: This is finally it. The ending I've been putting off on hold for for six years. Don't kill me plz. Thank you to everyone who have read it until the very end!