After I died

9

Anastasia

We were at the gate of Karanes only a few hours later, ready to head out. As the gate opened, I could hear Erwin yelling from the front for us to get moving. The survey teams took care of the few titans close to the wallso that we could all get into the formation.

It was quite calm where we were placed, of course, we had to keep Eren safe, so we were at the middle back of the formation, which was the safest place. Erwin's strategy worked great, which helped me keep a clear head and to not get nervous.

Of course we were always on alert anyway but no one minded, not having to fight all the time and instead just manoeuvring around the titans. Everything was fine until more and more black signal flares came up,all from the side, this indicated an abnormal titan being that way but no one seemed to be stopping him.

"What is happening over there?", I heard from Auruo besides me. "Why is no one stopping this damn thing." No one really replied since we all looked over at a bunch of yellow signal flares. Now I was wondering too what was happening. Yellow meant mission terminated, it was no order from Erwin so the troops on the right side ust have been mostly killed. That couldn't be regular attacks.

"Oh no, my friend Armin is somewhere there.", Eren mumbled, looking in direction of the yellow signal flares with a worried expression. "I'm sure they will be fine. Don't worry.", Petra tried to assure him. We changed the direction with the green signals, Auruo shooting the next one. A man from the right wing came to tell us that they had suffered a huge attack and that several teams were almost completely destroyed.

Levi sent Petra to deliver the mesage towards the left wing. Only seconds later, we saw black signal flares right next to us. How did the abnormal titan get so far into the formation? Eren shot a signal for our team. We soon reached a huge forest with gigantic trees. Most of the people around seemed to know this place, so I didn't say anything. Petra had also found her way back to us, so the team was complete again.

I could imagine that groups were starting to get impatient, but the reasons for riding into this forest, and the formation completely splitting was none of my business. Commander Erwin was in his position for a reason and if he was still keeping the mission going,then he probably had a good reason for it.

Eren wasn't as trusting tho. "Corporal Levi?", he yelled "What?" "What do you mean 'what'? We are riding into this forest, where we can't see enemies approching from afar and the formation has to split. Why are we still going?" "Can you stop compaining?", Levi just replied in annoyed tone. "These huge trees are the perfect enviroment to use the 3dmg's. Just think for once, with thtanotsosmart head  of yours."

Eren seemed satisfied with the answer until he started looking around. When following his gaze, I noticed that the others weren't anywhere near as calm as I was about the situation. Maybe there was indeed reason for worry. Until now I'd always trusted the higher up's blind, like when a boat goes down there's no time to arguing and everyone just has to listen to the captain. I didn't even question Erwin's decision at  the moment.

But seeing the rest of the team now, not everyone thought like me. No one said anything tho, we just kept going the same direction without further complaints until there was a black signal flare right behind us. "Everyone at the ready.", Levi said. "As soon as this beast shows up, we only have a single moment."

And there it was, a blonde haired, female looking titan, smashing a soldier behind us against before springting right at us. She didn't looklike the other titans I'd seen so far at all, her body wasn't fully covered by skin everywhere, fingers white as paper and her face looked way sharper than the titans I'd seen in Trost.   

Petra had called out to Levi, asking if we should chane to the 3dmg but he didn't reply. The titan was catching on fast, she didn't seem like she wanted to get past us. But she had passed any other group before us. Still not even minding the soldiers attacking her and just smashing the out of the sky like flies. What was so special that she wanted to get to us, except maybe the titan boy? But why would she...

The others were still calling to get any sort of order from Levi but he didn't react, until- "Everyone, cover your ears." He aimed for the sky with one of the pistols we used for firing the singal flares. There wasno smoke coming from the shot just an extremely loud noise. That made me glad we followed the order to cover our ears. Theremust be some kind of strategy behind this.

"Listen up, our job is to make sure that titan boy over there doesn't even get as much as a scratch so we will just keep going.", Levi explained, most of the team was agreeing immediatly, except, who would've thought, Eren. He was questioning again why we weren't attacking her. Eld and Gunther kept telling him to just listen to the orders but he wouldn't stop.

I had decided that Eren wouldn't listen to me anyway so I just kept quiet while lookign around to make sure we weren't overlooking any oter threats while being so focused on the titan behind us. Meanwhile Levi had finally spoken up and told Eren he had to decide if he trusted himself or the survey corps and this team to know what needs to be done.

Tho in the end it was Petra that convinced him to just trust them and finally put the hand down. To be honest, I would understand why Eren would rather listen to her. He was more of an emotional than s strategic thinker. Following orders didn't seem like his thing.