A Matter of Stature - Chapter 51 - Reader x Levi

A Matter of Stature

Chapter 51: Raging Fire

"We'll have to explore this whole area, there must be another clue nearby," Erwin decided. Before he could speak another word, the little titan disintegrated. It wasn't all that surprising by now, since they always met the same fate before.

Following the occurrence and a few stares from the people who were seeing it for the first time, Fluffy dashed by full speed. Levi whistled loudly and she returned. You blinked in surprised, she listened to him more than even to you, though she was supposed to be your pet. The horses must have taken this as a signal to come because three of them arrived on the spot, though you thought you saw a few more running around nearby. At least Knight and Cali were among the ones that came back, you were fond of them and didn't want them to get lost.

"We're changing tactics, we'll have to move slower on foot to search for clues. Horizontal formation, be aware of your surroundings and don't stray from the group. Keep an eye out for anything suspicious." Everyone got into formation and once again Erwin began to lead the expedition. You alternated between looking at your surroundings and at the ground in case there was anything that served as a clue, though it was difficult in the darkness. The three horses and Fluffy were taken along, she was quiet and calm for the most part. Another of the horses found the humans and instinctively sought after the safety of their company.

After a while, Fluffy started howling, which meant that the female titan with translucent hair was nearby. The group followed her head, but came face to face with an abnormal titan and it was very tall. Fluffy was still howling and pulling on her leash. Erwin picked her up and dodged the titan making a grab for her. It looked like following the scent of the female titan was taken as a priority over dodging the other titans, a fact that the scouts had been unaware of before.

Levi's ODM gear pulled him to the tree tops, then he dropped down, spinning rapidly. His blades cut from the back of the titan's head down its spine, to wherever the weak spot might have moved down the spine. "Take cover!" Everyone ran away. You forgot to count, but dropped to the ground and protected your head when you saw the others do the same. The explosion sounded off and once again you were assaulted by branches and rocks that were thrown by its magnitude.

After the explosion was off, it became evident that Fluffy wasn't an infallible titan tracker, but a creature trained to have priorities. As everyone got up and stretched their sore bruised limbs, Erwin voice what was already on your mind. "It has to be Fredrick." It was the name he had taken on later, his previous name held no meaning, as if his previous identity never existed.

The scouts advanced in hopes that retrieving the human within the female titan brought them answers as well as the whereabouts of Fredrick. He must have trained Fluffy to find the female titan and used the roses as a signal for her to try to recognize him, though he seemed to stop needing Fluffy at some point. If he occasionally took her from your home at Sina when you were younger, there was no way for you to know, since you were drowsy and disoriented most of the time during that era of your life.

Fluffy kept howling, but that didn't mean the female titan was the only one out there, so the scouts advanced with caution. The group arrived at a clearing where the light of the moon and stars shone through, illuminating the terrible scene below. The translucent haired female titan was there, wailing quietly in a terrible, haunting agony before the body of a man, two bouquets of roses placed over the cadaver.

"Father..." You felt your entire being go numb, then a burning pain overtook you as tears flowed down your cheeks. You rushed towards the body, as if needing to confirm beyond the shadow of a doubt that it was him and he was dead. You thought you heard Levi say your name, but you didn't stop until you fell to your knees next to him. "Father!" The female titan didn't run away, her face showed shock as she stared at you, then anger as she picked up your father's body, cradling it in her hands. "You monster, did you do this?" For a moment, fury almost overtook you, but then you saw how protective the titan was of him, even in death. "No... It wasn't you... I'm his daughter, I need to know who did this!"

From the corner of your eyes you could see Mikasa, Armin, Sasha, Kyle, Levi, Hange and Erwin surrounding the female titan. They planned to get her tangled in their ODM gear ropes and cut out the human inside. The monstrous looking, yet gentle titan woman stared at you for a long moment and finally lowered her hands, doubt still evident in her eyes. You looked into your father's face, he looked like he was sleeping, but his face was very cold and he held no hint of breath or pulse. He presented no wounds, as if he had passed away in sleep or rendered unconscious and killed by poison.

The ODM gear was fired and the scouts moved quickly around the female titan. You jumped back just in time not to get tangled up in the ropes and watched as she fell to the ground. The monster got angry and screamed in a deafening roar that left your ears ringing. Loud footsteps were heard from every direction. The titans were coming and the scouts were surrounded. In another surprise twist, the female's translucent hair moved like tentacles, grabbing the scouts by surprise and throwing them in different directions. Her skin gave way easily and ripped out with the ODM gear hooks as you as the others were thrown through the air.

You shot your ODM gear to prevent hitting the ground harshly and it hooked onto a tree. You pulled yourself towards it, leaves and branches scratching at you, then you felt something large grab your leg. You sliced away the titan's hand, freeing yourself from its grasp and moving out of the way of the explosion. The explosion of the fallen limb damaged the titan's legs, though not enough to blow them off. You shot your ODM gear and missed in the darkness, then shot the other side and moved out of the way just in time to dodge the titan making a grab for you with its other hand. You went around and cut downward, from the neck to the spine, until your swords hit a bump. You deepened the cut there and a spray of blood gushed out, followed by the telltale red glow. You moved out of the way, counting down to the explosion and took cover.

That was one titan down, but there were others nearby. You heard a few explosions in several different directions and didn't know which way to go. Your heart was racing and your mind was foggy. You had moved on pure adrenaline powered instinct during the fight, you didn't think, you just reacted. You wanted to scream at the top of your lungs, the world just wasn't making sense to you anymore, life seemed dead set on stealing everything from you. You fell to your knees on the ground, trembling in rage and confusion and punched the ground. Then another explosion echoed, and another after that. the scouts, your friends, your comrades and your lover were still fighting. You took big deep breaths. you couldn't think of anything but the fight now, 'focus, figure this out, save them, avenge father, live, I have to live to do all that,' you told yourself as another titan came close enough for your limited light to illuminate it.

xoxox xox xoxox

Armin got to his feet after being knocked down by the aftershock of the exploding titan he had just slain. He was breathing heavily, absolutely terrified, but refusing to die. His hands trembled as he gripped the ODM gear controls on the swords' handles and considered his next move. There had been another explosion nearby, it seemed to be the closest, so he reasoned he should head in that direction to try to regroup with the others. He moved a few steps and suddenly, saw the light of someone's lamps, and in a blur of motion, Levi had landed in front of him. "Captain Levi," Armin hurried to meet him, searching for guidance on what to do next.

"We need to regroup with the others and retrieve the human that's controlling the female titan," Levi began to move in the direction of another explosion.

"Right!" Armin quickly followed, moving from one tree to another.

There were three consecutive explosions nearby, which made Levi  change course. Then another two sounded off in a different area, but it was further away. Footsteps came from the side and Levi halted his advance to get rid of the titan that had began to chase after them. "Armin, go ahead and-" He stopped cold.

Armin looked at Levi, then at the approaching titan and gasped. Something was hanging from the side of its mouth by the hair. It was a human head that looked all too familiar. "(Name)..." Armin let out a quiet terrified whisper.

Levi dashed forward in a spin attack and sliced the titan into small pieces that glowed a threatening red. Armin knew it was time to retreat, he forced himself to do so and trusted Levi to do the same. After the explosion had passed, Armin picked himself up from the ground and searched for Levi. The captain was standing a few feet away, looking more enraged than Armin had ever seen him. The blond boy silently approached him with a trembling voice and disbelieving tears, "c-captain..."

"Get out of the forest," Levi ordered darkly. "Find the others and tell them to get out of the way. I'll bring the culprit out if I have to destroy this whole damn forest." Armin's eyes widened, but he dared not speak a word of protest. "Go!"

Armin managed to choke out a frightened, "yes, sir!" and moved in the direction of the multiple explosions that had gone off earlier, as another went off in the same place. Whoever was there was clearly giving the titans a very tough fight.

Armin moved forward, towards the area of the explosions. The fight seemed to be over and he thought he caught a faint light in the distance, belonging to someone's lamp, but then it went out. "Hello?" He swallowed the lump in his throat and tried to call out again, managing to make his voice loud enough to be heard this time. "Is there anyone here?"

"Armin!" A familiar voice replied from the darkness.

"Mikasa!" Armin called back. He halted his advance in a precaution. He couldn't see her and didn't want to accidentally hit her with one of the ODM hooks if she was up in a tree. "Where are you?"

"I'm right up ahead, I can see your lights," Mikasa called back. "I lost one of my lamps in battle, a titan swallowed it, and the other one had a leak, so it's out of oil now."

"I'm heading over to you," Armin moved a bit closet, calculating Mikasa's position, then dropped down and advanced on foot. He spotted Mikasa climbing down from the tree she had been in to meet him on the ground as a series of explosions sounded off in the distance. "Here, take one of my lamps," Armin removed one of the lamps from the side of the ODM gear and gave it to Mikasa, the explosions catching his attention with growing alarm. "We need to get out of here, we need to find the others and retreat. Levi's planning to destroy the forest to bring out the culprit."

"What? That's crazy, he can't destroy the whole forest by himself, how is he going to-" Mikasa was interrupted by something that looked odd in the distance, like a glow. She looked in that direction, feeling as if there was something there. "Wait," she went up to the tree tops again to have a look and came down with the news. "The forest is on fire!"

"He really is going to destroy it..." Armin whispered, expression shocked. "It's (Name)," his voiced trembled at having to deliver the news. Mikasa looked at him, bracing herself for the worse. "(Name) is dead."

xoxox xox xoxox

You made your way around the forest, trying to meet up with another of your companions. There were many explosions some distance away, clueing you in to which way to go. The sound of flowing water made you realize that you were near the river, though you had move upstream in the course of that last fight, the titan moved very erratically and it was difficult to hit him. You looked at the hand on the edge of the river and shuddered at the sight. You flexed your left fingers over your face over and over just to feel and see that they were indeed there. The regeneration had really taken a lot of energy, plus you were already tired from all the running around. The nap and meal you had before the mission was starting to wear out.

You caught sight of a light upstream. The group had not passed by this area before and you wondered why there was a light there. You went to examine it and found a cave on the river's side on a little hill and several empty bottles at the river's edge. You climbed up the hill and noticed the cave was more like a tunnel, with a smaller opening in the opposite end. The lamp on the ground had been abandoned, so you picked it up, extinguished it and took its oil for your own lamps. You turned one off to conserve oil since there was no immediate danger and investigated further. The cave branched out in the direction away from the river a short way inland in a dead end.

You crawled into the little cavern, reasoning that no titan would be small enough to fit, and if one reached into one side of the cave, you could exit out the other, not that they could see you there while you were investigating. There were several supplies at the cave. You examined the supplies and found a bottle of water. You were thirsty and weren't about to drink the river water with all that fell into it, so you drank from the bottle. The water was clear and tasted normal, so you reasoned it was fine.

You rummaged through the supplies some more. Maybe your uncle was camping out here, maybe he would be back. You felt nauseated at the sight of food, though the food itself was perfectly fine. You just didn't have an appetite at the moment, but you were tired and the sunlight was not present to empower you. You knew you could use the energy boost, even if it turned your stomach, so you forced yourself to eat some bread and cheese. You realized the bread was wet, though it had been dry when you picked it up. You dried away your tears and swallowed the rest of the sandwich. You heard more explosions go off and footsteps nearby, yet the steps were light in comparison to a titan.

After killing at least twenty explosive titans one after another and starting a fire when he lost one of his lamps in the fight, when five of them foolishly decided to gang up on him, Levi had to take a moment to catch his breath and organize his thoughts. It simply wouldn't do to become too reckless. He spotted a little cave beside the river and went in, there didn't seem to be any titans nearby, but at least this way he would be harder to see. He sat down, his back against the cave's stone wall. His breaths were heavy with exertion, his uniform was torn in several places and his swords and equipment were filthy. "I won't forget you..." he whispered under his breath. "I'll win for you... I love you (Name)..."

You jumped out of the little cavern and tackled Levi in a hug and kissed him, drawing strength and determination from the fact that you still had him in your life and you also had friends that you could still make many memories with. "I love you too!"

When you parted, Levi spent a good long moment staring at you in shock. "You're alive..." He pulled you close again and kissed you one more time.

"Of course I'm alive," you voiced, when you stopped for breath. "What ever happened to trusting your comrades to be alright? I'll probably be sad and disturbed by all that happened for a long time," you admitted sadly. "But you were right, every mission, is a chance to make every other mission that came before it worth it. I'm not going to let any of this go to waste, not my father's life and not any of their lives."

"Yes, that's right, we'll make sure no sacrifice is in vain," Levi agreed. The image of the titan and the head made no sense to him now. "It's not that I didn't trust you, I was convinced you'd be alright until I saw a titan with your decapitated head in its mouth. A wound like that wouldn't have been possible to recover from."

"I'm sure it wouldn't be," you held up your left hand, the sleeve torn at the end. "I got hurt, but I'm alright now and I'm certain I didn't get decapitated, so that wasn't my head you saw. But if you did see a head, that means that one of the others is..."

"No, it was yours, Armin saw it too, there's no mistake, unless..." Levi paused for a moment, considering another possibility. "Could it had been the head of a small titan that looked like you?"

"Tony has the same abilities I have, but how in the world would they make a titan of me, I've been with the scouts the whole time. I don't know, but I would imagine a sample of sorts would be needed," you mused.

"That's another mystery to solve," Levi looked towards the direction of the fire, the wind had stopped carrying the smoke, instead filled with the scent of burnt flesh. A strange mist, as if loaded with titan dust invaded the forest. "Looks like the fire was put out, but by whom? Let's investigate."

To be Continued