Clearing

Chapter 21

I marvelled at how much stronger I had become as we neared the breach in the wall. When I had first joined, I would have collapsed from exhaustion by now, but even after this my calves barely ached. We neared the wall to Trost, and Jean's voice rang out again.

"Leave your horses here. We scale the wall. Everyone up. Now."

There was a chorus of shouts and the crash of metal as we launched ourselves into the air, flying up the wall and landing on the stone. The sight that met us was pure carnage.

Though the houses away from the wall remained untouched, the ones closest had all been crushed, bricks scattering over the streets and littering the alleyways. Bloodstains were strewn across the cobblestones like some gruesomely morbid confetti, shards of broken glass glittering in their midst. I thanked some invisible God that I was too high up to see the faces of the corpses amongst the rubble. Still, fear tightened its grip on me at the sight, and my stomach violently lurched.

No. No, no, no. Please, not this again.

I fought the urge to clamp my hands over my ears and sink down onto the floor. My legs shook so hard it was a wonder I stayed upright.

They need you right now. If you don't step up, the people you love will die. Pull yourself together.

My eyes flicked over to Jean.

He stared down at the mess in a similar manner to me, his face pale, and I was certain I saw him shiver before he shook his head and turned to face us. "We move towards the front. Take out as many as you can. Eren, you know the drill by now. Most of you will work in teams of three, Mikasa, you can go solo. Don't die."

With that, he called Connie and Sasha over to his side and jumped off the edge of the wall. I ran towards Armin and Marco -Eren would be putting Hange's most recent experiments to the test- and nodded towards them before we also jumped down.

We swung between the crumbled houses, and I forced any uncertainty from my mind. Nothing mattered apart from this. Every single problem I had would be irrelevant if I failed here, so it was crucial for me to have my head in the right place. God, how stupid had I been? This time yesterday, I was worrying about whether some asshole scout liked me back. And now? Fuck, now I didn't know if my friends, my family, would still be alive by the morning.

We rounded a corner and ran right into a few new recruits trying to handle a 5 meter. At least half of them cowered on rooftops, their hands over their ears and their mouths open in silent screams. I felt a twinge of pity. I remembered my first mission clear as day, and I was certain that the circumstances hadn't been quite as dire as this one. 

"Marco, take out its ankles." I shouted. "Armin, try to sort out the kids."

I flung myself high into the air, twisting around to gain momentum as Marco struck at its tendons. Once it hit the floor I struck down, spinning as I hacked at the nape of its neck. Steaming titan blood sprayed at me and I rolled onto the ground, leaping onto my feet and wiping my face with the back of my hand.

"Marco, Armin!" I shouted again. "Back here. We need to move." I got back up to the rooftops and landed in front of the kids. "If you aren't going to fight, get on top of the walls. If you live, you can get stronger. You're no use to anyone as titan food."

I flung myself forward again, hearing the zip of the ODM wires as Marco and Armin followed me, and we took out every titan we encountered. The front guard ensured to only let 3-5 meters slip through so that the newer recruits could deal with them, and we cut through them with relative ease to get to the front lines.

The number of titans was already increasing, and I loosed a breath.

"Ok, no fancy moves. We need to use little energy and little gas, or we'll be dead meat out here." I shouted to the two men behind me. "Got it?"