𝑰𝑵 𝑻𝑯𝑬 𝑬𝑵𝑫 - Levi Ackerman [2]

twenty

20|marleyans and eldians

"Mikasa! Armin!" Lillian smiled widely when the other small group finally joined them. She quickly embraced the pair, missing them both and happy to see they are alive. "Reiner? Look how handsome you got."

"Ah, thank you." Reiner rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly as the doctor chuckled to herself.

"Well done for all staying alive." She patted Connie's head and wandered over to the blonde she recognised as Annie Leonhart. "It's lovely to meet you awake. Armin told me so much about you."

"Lils, stop embarrassing everyone." Levi warned her, still half asleep.

"But I have missed everyone so much." Lilly whined, going back to sit beside him, checking his injuries.

"Instead of staring each other down could some of you help me?" Hange complained as she tried to make food for everyone.

"To think we'd all be here taking a meal together after all the time we spent trying to kill each other." Theo Magath chuckled at the current situation. "It's interesting. What changed your mind? You know you'll get the world you want if you just let Eren Jaeger go. That heaven for you island devils. We were so close of keeping Eren and Zeke from coming into contact. If only you hadn't helped them out."

"Like I explained, General. None of us want genocide." The Commander reminded him. "We wouldn't have scurried off to a forest to lay low and make stew if we did."

"Give me that before you take a finger off." Lillian took the vegetable and knife away from Hange as she spoke, continuing to cut the food.

"So you're saying you finally see whose side justice is on." Theo said with a snarky tone.

"Justice?" Jean questioned his choice of words. "Were you just talking about justice? You? So we're the bad guys for fighting against those Titans you people kept sending over to us? Listen up! The reason we fought as hard as we did is because we didn't want to be eaten alive by titans. And you're over there trying to say that's something only Devils would do?"

"Yeah, you do look like Devils to me." He grumbled while taking a sip from his bottle of wine. "All our concerns about Paradis have come true, and now you're working on destroying the world. This is the result of all your hard fought battles. Is it not?"

"Listen here! If his mother wasn't eaten alive after the walls got torn down, Eren would never have done this in the first place!" The boy snapped at the General furiously. "You're the ones who backed him into using the rumbling, aren't you?"

"Oh, so you want to talk about history?" Theo yelled back at him. "You at least understand that Eldia was the first to devastate Marley and make its people suffer, right?"

"How long are you going to play victim over something that happened two millennia ago?" Jean screamed, the pair giving everyone a headache.

"Ugh, it's like I'm talking to a child." The General continued to bicker with him. "Do you think that nonsense holds water in the face of two thousand years of real history?"

"Excuse me?"

"Hey, stop it." Hange cut in between them. "No one wants to hear you bicker about things none of us saw two thousand years ago. Jean. The General here is baffled by our existence. The existence of us strange devils who are so desperate to save the very people who tried to wipe this island clean that we're willing to throw heaven away. We lived in the outside world for a few months. We can't go back to being ignorant island devils."

"And so, you can kill him now?" Annie spoke up after a short pause.

"What?"

"Can you kill Eren?"

"Killing Eren isn't the only way to stop him." Mikasa argued with the girl.

"Yeah, I thought you'd say that. Then what?" Annie continued, trying to understand what their plan was. "Are you going to convince him? Is the kind of person who tries to commit mass murder really going to have a mind you can change that easily?"

"We don't know. Not until we talk to Eren." Armin explained to her with a sigh.

"Okay, then say you're able to speak with him." She tried to reason with him. "What are you going to do if he still doesn't decide to stop this genocide? Don't you think we should have a last resort in mind?" They stayed silent. "Thought so. If we try to protect our homeland of Marley by killing Eren, you're going to end up fighting us in order to protect him, aren't you? That's how it is, right? Mikasa. Because I doubt you've ever considered something to be more important than Eren."

"So you're saying I should die?" Mikasa drew her weapons defensively.

"What?"

"Leonhart!"

"I understand exactly how you feel." Annie raised her hand, stopping her from attacking her. "I only have one reason I want to stop Eren. I don't want my father in Marley to die. That's why I need your help. If you can convince Eren to stop, then fine. At the very least, we shouldn't fight until it comes down to that."

"Okay."

"All right! Stews ready!" Lillian inputted, happy to see everyone defuse.

"Eat up!" Hange ordered as she started pouring the stew into bowls.