Chapter Text
She’s climbing up the wall! Shit, I think she’s trying to escape!
On every rooftop and laid out brutalized under every layer of debris, soldiers were panicking. No one had a prayer of stopping that devil, even if they were somehow quick enough to deploy into position and scale up the wall with what little ODM gear they had left. Eren had fought to the bitter end, using up every last shred of will and physical strength he had to stop her. He was now sprawled out like a rotted corpse amid the carnage and rubble. Carnage and rubble that seemed gratuitous in hindsight.
Somebody come quick! We can’t let her get away!
Mikasa’s head was pounding an unusual amount even for her, battered from where she’d taken hits and ringing at the sound of her comrades’ pleas for help. It occurred to her in the split second she had to think that no one—not Jean, not Armin, not even Section Commander or anyone else who partook in the destruction of Stohess that day—would be able to prevent Annie from making it over to the other side of that wall besides her. No one else shared in Mikasa’s agility and competence as a soldier; both of which were going to be essential in order to get the job done.
It was the eardrum-bursting shaking of the Female Titan’s colossal hands boring holes into the wall that ultimately snapped Mikasa out of her daze. Though she’d learned from Armin and the captain that it was best not to spring into action before first understanding the consequences of doing so, she knew that this was going to have to be an exception. There was no time for planning nor sifting through possible repercussions. There was only time to act and act fast.
By some miracle, her ODM gear wasn’t in ruins; banged up and in dire need of repair, certainly, but not obsolete. She used her least swollen hand to scrape the gore off her blade and then made a bee-line for the wall, knowing that she was going to have to fight for her life if she wanted to succeed; for humanity’s life.
Annie was a quick one, resembling a frenetic insect trying to squirm its way out of getting squashed by a boot as she climbed up to the very top of the wall’s surface.
But Mikasa could be quick, too.
The moment she came within range of the titan’s face, she flung herself towards it and hit Annie head-on, slashing and slicing until nearly all her face muscles were exposed.
That’s it, Mikasa! Kill her! Massacre that bitch and leave her entrails for the vultures.
It was a pleasant idea to her, tasteless though it may have been, and she let it be the motivation behind every cut and lesion she carved. Such a pathetic, shameful ending to one’s existence was only befitting for a depraved mass-murderer without a conscience. And however timid and stoic she may have presented herself to be during training, that’s exactly what Annie was; a mass-murderer.
You’ve got her now, Mikasa! Just a little bit more and she’s as good as dead!
Now that Mikasa had sufficiently bludgeoned the face, she knew it was time to go for the fingers—chop them off individually until Annie came crashing back down to the ground. Otherwise, regardless of how marred Annie may have been, nothing was stopping her from escaping notwithstanding.
Believing the female titan to have been sufficiently blinded by the blood, Mikasa left the face alone and lept up towards the left hand, which was barely clinging onto a small incision it’d dug out from the wall.
And finally, as Mikasa swung her blades in an attempt to make a sweeping slice through each of Annie’s fingers, it was looking as though this hellish fight was finally going to be over. Annie was going to be reclaimed by the Scouting Regiment and interrogated for intel; that is, if everyone wasn’t too pissed to negotiate and didn’t decide to just finish her off then and there.
But maybe it was the idea of the reward and a hopeful ending that took Mikasa off her guard.
Before she had time to process, she was enveloped in a giant hand, her face and body squished between thick, blistered skin. Maybe she could’ve used her gear to free herself, but she was in shock. The sudden grip had knocked the wind right out of her, and her arms were bent and stretched at unnatural angles.
However much she may have wanted to kick and pry her way out, all she could focus on was regaining her composure. Catching her breath long enough for her head to stop throbbing.
It was difficult to make out exactly who it was, as the density of Annie’s palm muffled the sound. But Mikasa could almost swear she heard Armin calling out for her.
Mikasa! Break free and get away from her! You’ve got to get away!
At this point, not only was she suffering from the worst headache of her life, but she was dizzy, growing nauseous from being upside down and tumbling for so long. She was certain that Annie had to have made it over the wall by that point.
Shit, Mikasa whimpered to herself the moment it hit her that she’d failed. She’d had one job—to keep the female Titan inside those walls—and she’d fucked it up. It had been obvious that she needed to protect Eren at all costs, but for whatever reason it never occurred to her that Annie might try to claim her as a hostage to take back home with her instead.
But that was far from the worst of it. The worst of it came in the form of the long-winded journey that would transpire over the next several days, in which Annie would run far from the walls, through the forest of tall trees, and beyond that. She only ever regained her human form in small increments of time, to rest or eat. But even then, Mikasa was far too exhausted and famished to even try to get away. And even if she could, where was she going to go? They were in the depths of titan country, now, and the best bet Mikasa had over going with Annie was to let herself be feasted upon.
To be fair, she did consider the latter at many points throughout the journey. She’d been feeling so ill and had lost so much weight that she realized that death might not be the worst thing that could happen to her. Her body was frail and her morale had been squandered.
She was in the middle of praying for a quick and painless demise when, for the first time since being taken captive, she felt anything other than fear and dread. In the likeness of Armin, it was intrigue. Human curiosity.
Annie had slowed from a repetitious jog to a walk, and then finally she stopped altogether.
Even through the tightness of Annie’s clutch on her, Mikasa could see sunlight seeping in through the slits between the titan’s fingers. There was the sound of birds squawking and singing to one another, and, surprisingly, there was the sloshing of water. No, not sloshing. More like a crashing. An all-enveloping crashing of water down on every object and landscape it came into contact with.
Mikasa took in several deep breaths, doubtful whether what she was hearing was really happening at all. Half-wondering if she’d gone mad and these were her demented, hunger-induced delusions.
“Water?” she asked herself.
She assumed Annie probably couldn’t hear her, even if the girl had come to a complete stop. But she was wrong.
Annie uncurled her fingers until she was eye to eye with Mikasa, though she positioned them high enough that Mikasa couldn’t yet see what lay over the horizon.
It was so strange staring up at Annie like this, now with the full knowledge that her former comrade was a traitor. For reasons Mikasa didn’t understand and might never be able to explain, Annie had committed atrocities worthy of a fate worse than death. She’d played the role of a double agent, betraying the Survey Corps and every last soldier she’d spent the last few years training with. She’d killed so many people—kicked and flung their lifeless bodies around as though they meant less than nothing to her. And she’d been dead-set on capturing Eren, the last hope that humanity had, and taking him far outside the walls. She must’ve wanted humanity to fall. Must’ve wanted every last person on the face of the earth to be wiped out.
Still, as Mikasa locked eyes with the giant devil, it wasn’t anger that filled her. The more questions she asked herself, the more apprehensive she became, wishing more than anything that she could just ask Annie why she’d done the atrocious things she’d done; and receive an honest answer. What was it all for? No matter what explanation Mikasa concocted in her mind, she could come up with nothing—absolutely nothing —that would ever be able to justify so much death and suffering.
“Were you just suicidal?” she asked aloud without even stopping to think about it, “Was that it? Were you just tired of all the pain and misery and wanted to take everybody else out with you?”
There was no point in asking much of anything as long as Annie was in titan form. As far as Mikasa knew, the girl wasn’t able to speak. Even if she could, Mikasa doubted she’d give any kind of real answer that wasn’t cryptic or purposely misleading in nature.
But Annie didn’t seem to dodge the question either. She didn’t let her eyes wander away, opting to hold Mikasa’s gaze instead. Like she knew something that Mikasa didn’t.
And yet, as wretched as Mikasa wanted to make Annie feel for what she’d done, there wasn’t a trace of guilt or shame to be made out from Annie’s expression. Only blankness. Only neutrality.
Mikasa was preparing to slam her with a whole slew of questions and accusations, ready to grill her to the point of self-loathing if need be.
But that’s when Annie decided to fully stretch out her fingers so that Mikasa could see.
Unlike Armin, Mikasa had never had the most wondrous imagination. In the wake of a full-on war with the titans, there was never much time to stop and imagine, and think, and dream, and reflect; at least not on her end.
Armin had told her and Eren about the ocean many times before, pondering the idea of it until his brain hurt, asking if such a place could really exist: a place where water covered every inch of the land for miles and miles across until you’d have no choice but to give up on the idea of there being other masses of land floating out there altogether. In those moments and only in those moments did Mikasa wonder if Armin could be onto something. For only a split second, she could almost see the water. Almost taste the salt that Armin insisted filled it.
And now, against her own faculty for belief and all the odds in the world so it seemed, she was seeing it in person. It was there right in front of her.
She couldn’t do much of anything other than gawk at it, her mouth hanging wide open as though she was a little girl again and her father had just brought home for her a new doll or some scrumptious meat to have for dinner. But luckily for her—and surprising given their circumstances—Annie decided to set her down so that she could get a closer look at it.
And truth be told, in that moment, fleeing was the furthest thing from her mind. The closer she stepped to this vast expanse of blue that sparkled and shimmered in the reflection of the morning sun, the more she was beginning to feel as though she really didn’t know much of anything at all.
Half-frightened that the fluid would harm her in some way upon making contact, Mikasa kneeled down and wafted her hand through the gentle waves. Before she knew it, they’d washed up around her and had gotten her feet and the better part of her legs soaking wet.
“Oh? Oh my god,” she panicked, trying not to lose her balance.
But once she stabilized herself, she fulfilled the secret mission she’d given herself upon getting into the water. She retrieved her hand and gave it a good licking.
Just like Armin had said before, salt. So much salt that she had to spit it out.
Everything. It’s everything he said it would be right down to the last detail.
She figured that, at some point in human history, people must’ve been allowed to come visit the ocean freely as they pleased and without fear. It must’ve been a time before the titans. A time of peace.
Still, it occurred to her then what Eren had said about Armin’s book being illegal—about the idea of the ocean and all speculation around it being unlawful and even dangerous—and she couldn’t help but grow confused by it.
Why? she asked herself, Why would they want to keep us in the dark about something so beautiful? So life-changing? What reason would they have to hide it?
And finally, it came time for her to address the elephant in the room: was the ocean something Annie knew about before, or was the girl just as shocked as she herself was to set eyes on the sea? If the former, then how? How could Annie have possibly known about it?
Books? Word of mouth?
“Did you know?” Mikasa found herself asking the giant titan, not out of malice but out of genuine curiosity. “About the ocean, I mean?”
She didn’t know why she bothered posing the question, as she hadn’t been able to get even a semblance of an answer from Annie since they first left the walls—or better yet, since before the 57th Exterior Scouting Mission or maybe long before that. Maybe Mikasa had never gotten any real concrete answers out of the girl the entire time they’d known each other.
And yet, much to Mikasa’s surprise, Annie didn’t leave her high and dry with no kind of answer at all. For the first time since their little journey together began, Annie gave her enough respect and decency to come clean about at least one thing.
The Female Titan nodded.
And that was Mikasa’s first clue.
It’s been a few days now since they crossed over and arrived at their holding cell. Even Annie could only get so far into the water, despite how tall and strong she was. The ocean must’ve gotten really deep at some point: too deep for even a titan to cross on its own. That’s why a small group of men in a big boat had to work to give her a platform for support, and that’s how they traveled the rest of the way.
Mikasa was shocked, initially, to learn that there were people out here, outside the walls. People who knew about the ocean and were familiar enough with it to build giant boats intended to sail across it. And yet, the more Mikasa pondered it, the more sense to her it made. Clearly, Annie wasn’t from back on the land where the walls were, otherwise she would’ve stopped them back there. So she must come from some kind of tribe of people across the sea. Maybe a small group of people had managed to escape from the titans a long time ago and had set up a small civilization elsewhere.
It made sense to her only until she remembered that Annie was in fact one of those titans. So what did that mean, then? Were these new people titans, too? Had people somehow discovered a way to harness the power of the titans for themselves? Or had they been titans all along?
Was Mikasa being carted away to be devoured by a tribe of titans that lived across the sea? Titans that could disguise themselves as human beings?
Still, however much Annie may have respected her to give an answer about the ocean, she clearly didn’t respect her enough to let her in on much else. When the giant ship they were on finally struck land again and the two of them disembarked, Annie made sure to keep her tightly concealed in the palm of her hand so that she could hardly see or hear anything that was going on around her.
She knew at the very least that there were other people nearby. However little she could hear, she did make a point of remembering as many quips and broken pieces of conversation as she could make out:
She’s made it back! The Female Titan has returned safely.
Was she able to capture and bring back The Founder?
No, not The Founder. Not even one of the nine. Just some regular Eldian girl.
A girl? Why? What the hell was the point of all that, then? Sounds to me like we’re still as good as fucked!
As far as Mikasa was concerned, these people were speaking in codes and gibberish; a language all of their own. She’d been expecting to get some answers through paying attention to what they were saying, but she was only left with more questions.
The one thing she could surmise was that these people had an understanding of the titans that was altogether separate from the one held by those living within the walls. They seemed to have unique names for each of these individual giant, god-like entities and, apparently, numbers.
What struck her as most odd though was the title that that man she heard had given her: “Just some regular Eldian girl.”
Eldian?
It sounded to her like a people group or maybe even a race. Back when she was a child, her mother would sometimes refer to herself and her relatives and ancestors as “Easterners,” having at some point hailed from somewhere other than inside the walls. Mikasa wondered if that same line of reasoning applied to this new term. Perhaps that was these peoples’ way of identifying her as a foreigner.
Though, it was equally possible that “Eldian” just meant non-titan. Maybe all these people speaking around her and maybe even the entire tribe consisted of titans. Maybe “Eldian” just meant that Mikasa didn’t share in their Titan-shifting abilities.
Whatever the case was, it wasn’t something that Mikasa was going to be able to decipher within the next few minutes, and she figured that out quickly when she was briefly released from Annie’s hand and forcefully restrained by a hoard of men instead.
Out of the corner of her eye, she just barely caught a glimpse of what was going on outside—families everywhere, buildings, merchants, houses…
But before she had time to process it all, she was directed to the dark interior of a building, modestly furnished and freezing cold.
One of the men restraining her jabbed his thumb so deep into the skin of her arm that it was starting to really hurt her.
“Ow! You’re hurting me!”
“You’ll shut that Eldian mouth of yours if you know what’s good for you, you low-life, island devil scum,” said one of the others, “You’re lucky we didn’t kill you as soon as you stepped off the ship. So a word of advice: if you’d like to extend your lifespan to last more than just the next couple of days, you’ll behave yourself.”
Completely taken aback by such a harsh encounter, Mikasa decided to heed his advice and shut up for the time being.
She figured out fairly quickly that this building she was in was some kind of prison, or at least a temporary holding place for fugitives. The further in she got, the more dusty, unkempt cells she saw. Most were empty, but the few prisoners she did make eye contact with stared at her in awe as though they were seeing a ghost.
Is that her? Is that that super-powered Eldian girl everyone keeps making a fuss about?
She’d grown accustomed to soldiers and even higher-ups fawning over her for her strength and abilities in combat, but she’d never been treated quite like this. To these people, she was less like a gifted fighter and more like a living legend; a god, or more aptly put, a devil.
When she finally arrived at her holding place, she thought it odd that they were giving her such a large, comfortable space. Surely, this had to have been the biggest cell in the entire prison, and it had two beds, a bench, and even a small bookshelf.
Nevertheless, it was starting to add up once Annie in her human form came trodding only a few feet behind her, also held back by guards. One of them unlocked the door to the cell, and another used the sole of his foot to push her inside so forcefully that she face-planted onto the floor.
They’re putting her in here with me? As a form of punishment for her? Are these not supposed to be her people?
“Wait, what are you doing?” Mikasa panicked, “You can’t just leave her in here with me. She’ll try to kill me the moment nobody’s looking!”
But the suggestion was met with nothing but vicious, maniacal laughter, across the board.
“Try to kill you? Now there’s an idea. As if you being alive in this holding cell isn’t the only reason she’s not being fed to a warrior candidate as we speak. Believe me, girl, your life just became Ms. Leonhart’s most prized possession.”
And before she had the chance to inquire further, they left the two to their own devices.
Pathetic though she looked on the ground like that, Annie just couldn’t be bothered to get herself up.
That’s when it hit Mikasa that, for the first time since she’d been taken from the walls, she now had the upper hand over Annie. The girl had to have been exhausted after running and swimming for miles over the course of the last few days, and she probably wasn’t going to be able to hold her own against Mikasa if she tried. If she so desired, Mikasa could very well knock Annie unconscious. She could probably even strangle her with her bare hands until the life slipped from her eyes.
With both of these ideas in mind, she took two small, quiet steps closer to Annie.
Annie still wasn’t up from the ground, but she wasn’t naive either.
“I know it may seem like the reasonable thing to do,” the girl admitted, just barely pivoting her neck so that she could look Mikasa in the face, “But I would really advise against it. Believe me when I say that it won’t bode well for you if my comrades find out that you’ve killed me.”
But Mikasa couldn’t be sure that Annie was in fact telling her the truth. In fact, what she said seemed to contradict everything that Mikasa had just learned from the guards.
“Some comrades they are,” Mikasa scowled, “Locking you in here like this and kicking you to the floor. They don’t seem much like comrades at all. If anything, I’d say it’s you who’s in danger of being killed by them, not me.”
Annie couldn’t help but laugh at such an absurd notion. It’s what finally drove her to rise to her feet.
“For someone trapped in enemy territory, you sure do like to pretend you have even an inkling of an idea about what’s really going on here. You think any of them give a shit about whether you live or die? Think again. It’s true: my livelihood as of right now rests on you staying alive and healthy. But the inverse of that is also true. Kill me—kill the Female Titan—and you’ll be seen as nothing more than a threat that needs to be snuffed out.”
Mikasa blinked several times, trying to decipher just how much truth there was in those words. After all, it was entirely possible that Annie was bluffing, over-exaggerating her own importance just so that Mikasa would forgo the choice to kill her.
“Indispensable,” Annie clarified, in case Mikasa didn’t get the hint, “As of right now, that’s what you and I have just become to one another. Without you, I’m a warrior who failed her task, whose titan powers are better suited being handed off to someone more adept. Without me, you’re just a foreigner who can’t be trusted and must therefore be eradicated. You got that?”
To have to be so codependent on the person who murdered entire droves of her fellow soldiers—the idea made Mikasa feel sick to her stomach.
“Well, what makes you think I want to stay alive so badly?” Mikasa challenged, “What’s stopping me from killing us both? Killing you and then myself, or killing you and then letting them come for me? You’ve taken me away from my friends and comrades, haven’t you? Stripped me of my dignity and delivered me like a sacrifice to your people. Remind me again what exactly it is that I have to live for.”
“Took you away from them, yes. Killed the people most important to you? No. Eren, Armin, and all the rest are still on that island, alive and kicking. And I don’t doubt that, at some point, they’re going to show up here with an army and try to get you back. When they do, how do you think they’ll feel knowing you offed yourself? When you could’ve had the chance to reconcile with them again one day?”
Mikasa gasped in response. She may not have realized just how exhausted and emotionally drained she’d become over the last few days, but the image of Eren and Armin showing up to this place only to discover that she was dead is what ultimately did her in. Tears started streaming down her face.
“How dare you,” she accused through gritted teeth, “How dare you bring Eren and Armin into this. How dare you use them to try to manipulate me. I know you’re lying, you murderous, conscienceless bitch. All you ever do is lie. After you betrayed the scouts, and killed Captain Levi’s squad, and wreaked havoc on Stohess, and tried to take Eren away: how can I trust you to do anything other than lie?!”
Annie’s expression never changed. If the girl felt in any way offended by those words, she certainly didn’t show it.
“You’re right. I suppose you don’t have much of a reason to trust me. That being said, I can’t help but find it surprising how little faith you have in your comrades. Do you really suppose they won’t even try to come rescue you from this place?”
“How would they? They don’t know about this place. They don’t even know about the ocean or the existence of people living far away from the walls.”
“Maybe not,” Annie concurred, “Though I have reason to suspect that that will be changing very soon.”
She took a seat down on the little bench and crossed her legs. She was beginning to look so bored of this discussion that you’d think the two girls had been talking about stocks or the local news and not bartering for both of their lives.
Frustrated but maybe even more tired, Mikasa sat down on the floor and did her best to stifle her tears. However angry and devastated Annie may have left her—however much Mikasa may have wanted the girl dead and rotting in hell—it was becoming clear to her that, as of right now at least, that wasn’t going to be an option. Besides, she didn’t want to let the enemy see her in such a state of utter weakness.
Still, despite all the ill wishes she was harboring in her heart towards Annie, she couldn’t deny that it was odd how passive the girl seemed to be about the whole affair. Annie never denied having committed atrocities, and she never denied being a terrible human being. Nor did she ever try to defend a single one of her actions.
Not that any of that ambiguity or potential for moral grayness was going to sway Mikasa towards being any less hostile. It was her wrath and sense of justice that ultimately won out.
“You’re evil. Pure evil, and I hope you realize that. I hope that you’ll spend the rest of your life wishing it wasn’t true and trying to find some kind of redemption for yourself, but that you’ll know in your heart that it is true and that you’ll never be able to get away from it.”
Annie sighed. She let her shoulders and posture slouch, not wanting to put up much of a fight, so it seemed.
“Maybe. Maybe I am evil.”
“You are. It’s not even up for debate.”
“Could be.”
“But why? What reason did you have to carry out all those senseless killings? Even if you did come from somewhere else, what reason did they have to order you to do it? Did your friends and the bonds you formed with your fellow soldiers mean nothing to you? Absolutely nothing? Were you just that deadset on winning the respect and admiration of the people who live far away from the walls?”
Annie bit down on her lower lip slightly, not necessarily because she didn’t know the answer to that question. But perhaps because she hadn’t thought about it in such terms in years, and it seemed absurd to her that someone might try to construe her intentions that way.
“No. Truly, I don’t really care about any of those things. What good does the praise of a faceless, nameless crowd do me?”
That answer left Mikasa dumbfounded. Since Annie had cared so little about defending her reputation or sense of morality, Mikasa figured that she’d have no qualms about admitting that she did what she did for selfish reasons; money, fame, glory, or what have you.
But Annie seemed sincere when she denied it. If that was true, then what could have been the real reason?
“Then, what? Why’d you do it?”
Annie hesitated for a moment, unsure whether it would’ve been a good idea to let Mikasa in on such personal information. But she must have figured that it couldn’t have hurt anything too much, because she did eventually decide to give in.
“I wanted to see my father again.”