After I died

38

Armin

"We go back to the wall to the commander, report the loss of Ana and team Hanji due to the explosion of Berthold's transformation and then wait for new orders, we will probably keep the plan of letting him burn out.", I mumbled, not fully registering my own words, it seemed like my brain was running on stand-by. We had just lost one of the best strategisers in the scouts, the second best fighter in team Levi and a whole squad of people. Especially Hanji and Ana were key figures in our plans, not to mention that they both were close with the captain who was a key figure in this as well.

"Armin, wait. We can't get there now, if we bring Berthold to the wall with us, he might also set the houses outside of Shiganshina on fire and the the commander and everyone else would get caged.", Jean threw in before we could make our way to the wall. "You mean, we need to fight him here and now? With only us and no back up coming.", Connie asked. "Come on, Armin, give us orders. What if Eren's house is among these too?" "Looks like he doesn't know where we are.", Mikasa said. "Yes, he's just randomly throwing burning houses.", I replied slowly.

I turned to the others. "Jean? Can you take over from here on?" "What?" "My false judgement of this situation has lead to this chaos, please can you take over?" He looked around for a bit but then nodded carefully. "The river. Eren will bring us to the river. We have to draw Berthold's attention at a specific time, before that, we can't let him notice that. Armin, I may be good at judging situations, but I have no idea how to solve this one, in the end, I will rely on you." Most of my worst case situation plans didn't require all of our survivals but I had always counted on Mikasa and Ana being there, since they were the most skilled and worked together well, but now that Ana was probably dead-...

Wait, what if not. Hanji's team was after Berthold but Ana should have already reached Reiner, if so, and she managed to use his titan as a shield against the explosion itself, she was now probably struggling with the heat and the situation of everything around her being on fire. It was possible that she could make it back to us if she really was still alive. But it would take time and it was only a hope. Tho in that case, I could think of somethings to do. 

"In case we encounter the captain or commander, I need you all to lie to them. Tell them Ana is fine and currently out to get Reiner." The others looked at me with those weird expressions. "What?" "Why?" "We can't just lie to the higher ups." I sighed. "You'll have to. If Ana managed to reach Reiner and hide behind him from the explosion like we did with Eren, she's probably still alive.", I explained. "Yes, but in this scenario, she'dbe stuck in the fire.", Jean threw in. "Don't say that either. Please, you have to trust me. We have to avoid more chaos." Mikasa was the first one to nod and agree, then Jean sighed but promised to go along with this as well. The others followed short later.

We had finally gotte into a positionfrom where we could lure Berthold to get away from the wal whee the others were. Eren screamed but Berthold just gave us a sidelong glance and kept walking towards the wall. We had to somehow find a weak spot in his defenses. But how? The thunderspeers weren't working due to the hot air he was producing. And suddenly Reiner showed up, if he was still standing where was Ana?

Anastasia

I was slowly waking up, it was digustingly warm around me, but there was a free space around me head, as well as a small hole tothe outside. "Speak" I didn't know who was talkign to me, or how but I could hear his voice clearlyin my head. "You said something about the coffee." "Yes.", I coughed out. "You're from the other side of the ocean. And you were sent here." I could only hope that allmyassumptions were right. If I said something wrong, he could immediately crush me by regenrating the flesh around my head.

"You know about the mission?", he asked. I felt something at my back, like the thoughts I could hear  from him, were coming formthis thing entering my back. Hadhe conected me to his nervous system while I was out. If so and I could hear his thoughts... what about his memories? "Your parents must be so proud of you.", I said, hoping to direct his thoughts to his home and the mission, to get information.

"I talked to Zeke.", I said, hoping the name I had picked up from his thoughts fit into what I was saying. His thoughts went to the man I had mentioned, I could see glimps of memories regarding him. He was their leader and was making the plans. I caught just enough information for a next statement.   "Berthold was eaten by one of the soldiers from the survey corps. This soldier is walking around with his titan now, probably on his way to Zeke todestroy the plan. We need to stop him."

Reiner was silent for a bit. I could hear his train of thought going back and forth, but then he decided I knew too much to make something like this up. "Fine. Let's go get revenge from this bastard for killing Berthold." Wow, and I didn't even have to bring his trauma into this. "I can get to his neck if you distract him.", I said. "Cut him out so we can take him back to Marley and feed him to another soldier. But you'll have to let me out."

"No, the explosion burned your lungs throat and my regeneration squeezed the lung muscles, I'm currently keeping them working but if I let you out now, you'll stop breathing immediatly. I will attack him myself. You rest now." What? No I couldn't stay in here. If the others kept fighting Berthold, he'd find out that I was lying and that the colossal wasn't his enemy. Reiner was still able to kill me at any moment. The others were attacking him, if I could keep distracting him, they would kill him. I wasn't sure ifmylungs were hurt as badly as he said, but I had to risk it. Wouldn't be the first time I died, after all.