#yelena ew...

Above her, Levi cut through the sky in a blur of steel and gas, already redirecting toward the pure titan that had transformed in town. She trusted him to handle it. He always did. He would kill it quickly and regroup with her on the tarmac before the assassin could move.

Until—

Another crack of yellow light split the air.

The sky flashed a nauseating green.

And a second titan appeared near the tree line.

Thirty meters tall.

The shockwave nearly threw her off balance, the walls her anchors had sunk into began to rumble and crack. Windows exploded somewhere behind her as the first titan fell, disposed of by Levi. People screamed louder and more animalistically as terror was tearing through the harbor. Connie shot out from his hiding place in the foliage of the tall oaks and bolted towards the new threat. Another crack of yellow lightning jolted through the air. As y/n looked over her shoulder towards the commotion, she saw Levi rush towards it, changing his trajectory from the tarmac to the new threat.

Y/n growled in frustration. If they were to focus solely on their objective, countless lives would be lost. Their consciousness dictated their reactions—and because of that, the assassins would likely escape.

Except y/n wouldn't allow it.

At least three people are in on this…they have to be injecting people in real time.

Y/n shoved it all away, honing in on her only goal—capture the responsible party.

Get a grip.

Focus.

The assassin.

Where is he?

Her eyes flitted across the structures surrounding the runway, searching rooftops, tower windows, maintenance hangars, fuel stations. She forced herself to think like a killer again.

If I were taking the shot… where would I position myself?

High ground? Too obvious. Control tower? First place they'd check. Fuel depot? Blind spots, wind coverage, and plenty of exits.

Her breathing slowed instinctively despite the destruction around her. The old training crawled back into her muscles to her relief.

But that was also a part of the problem.

She hadn’t used her training like this in years. That version of herself had died after joining the scouts, when she shifted to killing titans instead of people.

Or at least she had tried to kill that part of her.

The world moved differently now, and since Eldia was thrown into the future, technology and techniques were shifting rapidly.

What type of training had these new-age assassins overcome? How much more had they hardened them? Starved them? Forced them to fight until their bones snapped and healed crooked? Tortured them and conditioned them to kill until there was no humanity left inside of them?

The assassin from the cabin had nearly killed her, despite her quick reactions and exhaustive efforts. His movements had been so precise and efficient, and his eyes had that glassy, hollow look that hers once used to possess. He moved and behaved like the pain had been carved right out of him.

And if he had only been one operative—

Her stomach lurched as she shot towards the fuel depot, adjusting her grip on her blades and moving through the smoke. She landed with a thud on her heels, sprinting fast, boots pounding against the tarmac while the massive titan's shadow swallowed half the runway behind her. Connie swarmed it, dodging its grip narrowly.

Then there was a flicker of movement that she just barely caught from the corner of her eye. Not panicked or rushing, they moved with control. On the far side of the runway near the refueling station, someone in dark gear stepped briefly into view before disappearing behind a transport vehicle.

Thats no civilian.

Y/n’s pulse quickened instantly.

Found you.

She drew her blade.

Don't kill them...nothing lethal.

She edged around the corner slowly, peering past stacked fuel barrels, slick with excess oil. She heard the sounds of metal clicking just ahead. The assassin was assembling her rifle methodically, crouched near the crates, snapping pieces together as if she’d done it a thousand times before.

For one terrible second, y/n saw herself.

Younger, meaner, half-starved, and trained to kill before she’d even learned how to live.

Her stomach twisted with regret, but she swallowed it down. There wasn’t room for hesitation anymore. She didn't have time nor option to take pity on the young woman. Her fingers clenched around the hilt of her blade. She briefly considered drawing her sidearm, but a bullet would be messy and far too unpredictable. Too much blood loss and a sloppy wound, she risked hitting an artery and killing the girl. They needed her alive long enough to answer questions.

So she narrowed her focus to one objective:

Her Achilles tendon. She would drop her, restrain her, and interrogate her later on.

Everything else vanished from her mind as she honed in on her new point of focus. She exploded forward like a bullet, boots hammering against the tarmac as she lunged from cover with her blade drawn.

Then something slammed into her from behind with impossible force. The impact drove the air from her lungs as she crashed face-first into the concrete. She barely had time to raise her forearms to her throat defensively before a wire bit viciously across the skin of her arms.

A garrot.

Great...just my luck.

Instinct took over. She jammed both forearms tighter between the wire and her neck just as it cinched down. The steel carved through her protective black gear, which took the brunt of the cutting, slightly opening hot lines across her forearms.

Thank god for good engineering...

“Don’t—!” her attacker barked sharply from behind her at the woman assassin who began to move in to help him. “Focus on our targets. I’ll handle her.”

Rage detonated inside her chest.

Y/n planted her knees beneath herself and threw her full weight forward without inclination. Her attacker stumbled with her momentum, losing footing on the pavement. The wire tore violently across her forearm on the way down, peeling skin open in a white-hot streak that made her vision blur momentarily.

Good.

Let it hurt.

Now I'm fucking mad.

“The hell you will, you little bastard,” she snarled, voice raw as she twisted beneath him with sudden violence, able to shove him off of herself. The years she’d spent trying to bury this part of herself vanished in an instant. There was no longer any humanity left to her.

Only the will to live.

I have to make it home to my son...I promised him. I promised Levi–

We promised each other.

She stood to her feet taking out her side arm a fraction too late, her attacker already had his drawn, and fired on her. The bullet hit her upper thigh. She rolled low and tackled him down, quickly grabbing his hand where he held the gun and smashing it into the ground, breaking his bones.

She looked up at his face. His orangish hair was plastered to his pale skin, and his narrow eyes were burning with a familiar air of hateful conviction.

It was like staring at a rotten copy of Floch Forster.

“Forster…” she seethed, locking both fists into his hair before slamming his skull into the pavement with a sickening crack. “I’ll enjoy killing you almost as much as I enjoyed watching your brother die.”

A sharp hand suddenly tangled into her hair and ripped her backward hard enough to wrench her neck.

Y/n snarled bitterly, immediately grabbing at the smaller wrists restraining her. The girl was deceptively strong, clinging to her from behind as y/n twisted violently, trying to throw her off balance.

“We don’t have time for this!” the girl shouted toward Franco. “I shot out the fuel tank on the plane, but the Grice's can still escape if we don’t move now!”

Franco staggered upright with a wheezing grunt, his broken hand clutched tightly over his chest. With the other, he reached into his cargo pocket and drew a knife.

“Just hold her still,” he spat. “I’ll cut her throat and we’ll move. Don’t feel like risking a shot if I miss and hit you instead.”

Y/n bucked and kicked beneath the girl’s hold, screaming at Franco as he approached. Everything was happening too fast. And yet somehow, she saw every detail in horrible clarity. The shine of the blade, the blood running down his fingers, and the slight limp in his gait.

Maybe this is it.

Maybe this is where I die.

Franco crouched, reaching for her jaw to expose her throat when a cable screamed past her face.

It hooked clean through his leg. Ice-burst gas exploded through the air. Then Levi hit the ground like a storm, ripping the blade away from Franco's hand and pounding into his face, blade still gripped in his hand.

A heavy thud sounded behind y/n, and warm liquid sprayed across the back of her neck. The hands in her hair loosened slightly. She turned just enough to see the girl’s body collapse beside her—headless. The severed head bounced once before rolling beneath a cargo crate, blood pouring across the concrete in thick waves around y/n’s arms.

She ripped herself free and scrambled backward on her elbows until her spine slammed into a wooden crate.

Her eyes shot toward Levi.

He now stood over Franco with a terrifying stillness, blade pressed against his throat so precisely it barely dimpled the skin. Steam curled off his clothes from fresh titan blood, but he had beheaded the female assassin so quickly that none of her blood had time to land on him.

He tilted his head slightly.

“You know…” he said quietly, pushing the blade just enough to open a thin line across Franco’s throat, “if my aim had been a few inches higher, you’d’ve ended up exactly like your idiot brother.”

Franco froze, panting wildly.

Levi’s mouth twitched into something that wasn't quite a smile, but certainly possessed a rageful and psychotic quality.

“ODM anchor through the throat.” His voice stayed calm. “It's an ugly way to die. Tears everything open on the way out.”

A faint chuckle left him as steam drifted from his gear, evaporating into the air.

“Lucky for you, I only took your leg.” He pressed the blade a little deeper. “So your esophagus gets to stay where it belongs. For now.”

Franco tried to speak, but the movement only forced more blood down his neck.

Levi’s expression flattened instantly.

“Did I say you could talk?”

The blade dug in another fraction.

“On your knees.”

Above them came the sharp crack of ODM gas.

Connie landed heavily beside her, breathing hard enough to shake his shoulders. His eyes immediately dropped to the blood soaking through her thigh.

“You’re hurt…” he said.

“Yeah,” y/n hissed through gritted teeth, shoving trembling hands against the gunshot wound. “No shit, Sherlock.” Despite her injuries, y/n still found the energy to use her newest favorite phrase since discovering modern Marlean literature—and the adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.

“You’re insufferable…even when you’re injured," Connie mumbled, looking her over to identify her wounds and their severity.

“Levi…she’s hit in the leg,” he announced, watching anxiously as Levi finished tying Franco’s wrists and ankles together before shoving him harshly onto his side.

Levi turned immediately, dropping beside y/n and nudging her shaking hands away from the wound.

“Move.”

She peeled her blood-slick palms back, relieved when blood didn’t immediately begin spurting from the hole in her thigh. She was still bleeding badly, but it wasn't arterial.

“Onyankopon!” Levi barked.

Just then, the plane door creaked open.

Onyankopon stepped carefully down onto the tarmac before reaching back toward the doorway to help another hooded figure descend behind him. Y/n leaned her head back against the crate with a weak laugh.

“Oh, Armin…” she sighed as Levi’s hand clamped tighter over her thigh. “Always hiding your little surprises…”

“Someone had to fly the plane,” Onyankopon smiled as he knelt beside her with a combat med kit in hand. “And seriously, Your Highness, we have to stop meeting while you’re actively dying.”

She physically cringed at her formal title. Then she saw him pulling out a packet of kaolin-coated gauze, and groaned.

“Oh, fuck no.”

Levi snatched the packet from Onyankopon’s hand before she could protest further and ripped the foil open with his teeth.

“I’m warning you now, it’s going to be bad.” he muttered.

“Yeah, yeah…” she breathed shakily, already trying to brace herself. “Just get it over with fast. Please.”

Without asking, she grabbed Connie’s hand so hard his fingers cracked audibly.

“Okay—ow—Jesus—” Connie hissed, crouching down in front of her anyway. “Hey, look at me. Focus on me, not him.”

“Wait.”

Connie suddenly leaned sideways, digging into the med kit before grabbing another pack of QuikClot and tossing it toward the hooded figure standing nearby with their back turned.

“Yelena, deal with his wounds,” Connie said, jerking his head toward Franco writhing on the pavement. “Can’t let him bleed out before we get answers.”

“Yelena? Why the fuck is she—”

Her words broke apart into a strangled scream as Levi shoved the gauze directly into the bullet wound. Pain exploded through her body so violently that she nearly blacked out. She lurched forward with a cry, abandoning Connie’s hand entirely to fist both hands into his short hair instead, yanking hard enough to nearly drag him down with her, hugging him in tightly as if she could use him to scooch away.

“Jesus Christ!” Connie screeched. “What happened to squeezing my hand?!”

“Shut the fuck UP!” she screamed back immediately, tears pouring uncontrollably down her face. “Ow—ow—holy shit—FUCK—!”

Levi ignored every word. His jaw stayed tight as he packed the gauze deeper with merciless efficiency despite the way her leg shook violently beneath his hands.

“At this point, just let me die!” she sobbed, trying unsuccessfully to twist away from him as he worked.

“Not happening.”

Levi barely looked up.

“Connie, hold her still.”

“Connie don’t you fucking touch me!” she shrieked instantly.

“Sorry!” he yelped anyway, grabbing her lower leg at the shin before she could accidentally knee Levi in the face. Her muscles spasmed uncontrollably beneath his grip. Every instinct she had screamed at her to crawl away from the pain. Instead, she settled for repeatedly punching Connie in the head while Levi continued forcing the clotting gauze into the wound.

Finally, Levi stopped packing it.

Y/n slumped back against the crate, trembling so hard her teeth chattered, and sobbing uncontrollably, tears streaked and stained her cheeks.

But Levi immediately repositioned himself, interlocking his hands before driving hard pressure directly over the wound. Fresh agony ripped another scream from her throat. He leaned more weight into it without hesitation, holding steady pressure while blood soaked thickly into the gauze beneath his palms.

“Please stop, baby—it hurts so much…you’re hurting me.” she begged brokenly, looking up at Levi deliriously —saying anything to make him stop.

The expression on his face made her stomach twist worse than the pain.

He looked miserable.

He wasn't revealing his panic, but she could tell he was deeply, visibly distressed for her beneath the strict control he kept wrapped around himself. His brows were drawn hard together, and his eyes searched her face with contrition.

“Breathe,” Connie urged desperately as she held her breath in front of him, turning beet red. “Y/n, come on, breathe—”

“You’re not dying from one shitty gunshot wound after everything else you’ve survived,” Levi said firmly, maintaining crushing pressure against the wound. “So quit scaring the hell out of everyone and breathe properly.”

“I—I’m trying…” she gasped, beginning to hyperventilate.

Whines kept slipping out of her throat, no matter how hard she tried to suppress them. She clutched weakly at the hem of Levi’s cloak in a desperate attempt to ground herself in the feeling of the time-worn fabric while pain radiated through her entire leg in violent waves.

Something in Levi’s face tightened painfully at the sound, and his eyes flicked shut briefly before refocusing on the wound.

“Just a few more minutes,” he muttered, voice lower now. “Then we move you to the truck and get you to a hospital. I just need the bleeding to slow first.”

Y/n nodded shakily, though focusing was nearly impossible with Franco screaming somewhere nearby while Yelena treated his injuries. Every noise felt like a knife directly into her skull.

Finally she grimaced.

“Can we make him shut his ugly mug?” she hissed weakly. “He’s pissing me the fuck off.”

For the first time since she’d been shot, Levi let out a short breath of a laugh.

“There she is,” he murmured.

He slowly eased the pressure off her leg. After checking the wound one final time, he slid one arm beneath her knees and the other behind her back before lifting her against his chest. Y/n immediately curled into him on instinct, clutching weakly at the front of his chest while he stood.

“Easy,” he muttered quietly. “I’ve got you.”

Connie sprinted for the driver’s seat of a nearby truck while Onyankopon and Yelena hauled Franco roughly into the bed like a rag doll. Levi climbed in beside y/n without ever loosening his hold on her, keeping one bloodstained hand firmly pressed over the packed wound as the truck tore across the tarmac toward the nearest hospital.

Y/n peeked weakly over the edge of the truck bed, taking one last look at the headless female assassin sprawled across the bloodstained pavement. She felt an unexpected sense of grief twist in her chest, tightening her throat. But beneath it she felt relief. Crushing, overwhelming relief that this had not been her fate.

All of the missions.

All the times she took life from someone else .

This should have been her years ago. She felt thankful that Erwin saved her life. She was glad that somewhere along the way, with the last man she ever expected to love, she had escaped her past and learned how to live again.

The truck sped farther down the road, the corpse shrinking into the distance, but y/n couldn’t tear her eyes away from the girl who couldn’t have been older than twenty years old.

She probably was a lot like y/n.

No mother.

No father.

Nobody to miss her.

The thought continued to linger in her mind, heavier than the pain in her body.