THE MOON'S REQUIEM ¦ levi ackerman.

I've

"Be careful! Titan ahead!"
"There's body parts everywhere!"
"Commander Hange! Please don't run off like that!"

Hange looked at their surroundings. A blown-up cart, a poor horse who got tangled in the mess, and the rushing river.

"... Did a cart horse get blown to pieces?" They asked, rhetorically. Dazed and confused, they went on their own to investigate.

They looked around, they kept looking, and spotted a man lying face-down by the banks of the river. "Man down!" They exclaimed. They got off of their horse and sprinted towards the bloodied figure.

"Hey! Are you alive?!" They asked them.

Silence.
Shock.
Melancholy.

Hange held him by his shoulder and supported his head.

"... Levi?"

And it sunk in. Hange was shocked, to say the least, a horrified and worried expression settled in their features. They still tried to discreetly assess his condition.

'He's barely here,' Hange thought. Shrapnel from the thunderspear clung to Levi's cut-littered face; one particularly long wound ran across his eyelid, cheek and lips. Hange also found that he'd lost his index and middle fingers. 'He would need at least a week to recover, if Marley would even allow us some time that long...' the bitter thought crossed their mind.

A voice broke Hange's train of thought. "... I don't know what happened here, but... We got lucky. Our biggest threat, covered in his own blood." Floch said, the Jaegerists tailed him with guns in their hands. "I'll send a shot through his head." one of them volunteered.

"He's dead.

"He must have been hit by a thunderspear explosion at point-blank range. I saw something similar in a training accident. He may not look like it, but his organs are in shreds. He died immediately."

Now, Hange may have said that with a straight face, but their eyes were blank. Lifeless. Their hands holding Levi must've been uncharacteristically unsteady, seeing one of their closest friends severely injured and teetering on death's seesaw.

"I know how to take a pulse. Let me see him." Floch interjected, as the Commander held the Captain's body tighter, not wanting to hand him over to the redhead.

And then... BOOM! The sound of a large explosion echoed across the field. A Titan.

They turned their heads to the creature. It was a fairly unusual kind. Instead of emitting steam as its blood evaporates, it sucks steam into itself.

Hange stared, the Jaegerists raised their guns and the Titan continued to fester, leaving only its bones on the grassy ground.

The smell of petrichor rose from the damp soil. Along with it, someone awakened from their slumber. A faint silhouette could be made out from the steam still being emitted by the Titan, concealing the mysterious person.

The rain was put to a halt, light seeped through the clouds. Now, they could see who it was that emerged from the Titan — it was none other than Zeke Jaeger himself.

Hange, nearly petrified, cradled Levi's body closer to them. Then, they did the unthinkable.

Hange, holding onto Levi's body, jumped into the river.

————— ☾

Slash.
Drip.
Bam.

The slash was Hange cutting open a Scout's throat.

The drip was the tear that slid down on Hange's cheek as they shot down another Scout.

They were in pain, their heart in conflict having to kill not one, but two members of the Scout Regiment. They had to kill two of their own.