After I died

55

Hanji

Pieck arrived with Yelena, Onyankopon and Jean. I was facinaed by the cart titan, eventho Jean had to throw up for about two minutes straight because of the smell in Pieck's mouth. "Where is Ana? Did any of you see her?", I asked, looking between all of the others. "I saw her with the yeagerists, she managed to injure my leg but other than that, no idea." Now we were just waiting for Mikasa, Armin and Connie to arrive, they were also on our way to us. "Alright.", I spoke up. "We will wait for the others to arrive and then get Ana. Levi and I will find a way to get her back into a sound state of mind."

It didn't take long for the others to arrive so we settled down and I started making soup. "So, are we finally complete now?", Magath asked and I shook my head. "No, we're still missing Ana." "Who?", Annie asked, she as probably the only one here who didn't know Ana. "Anastasia Ackermann. Pieck and Magath know her as Ana Srijokowitsc. She's currently with the Yeagerists but-" "As far as I know, she's switched sides.", Yelena interrupted me. "She's been working with the Yeagerists, ever since a few days after we attacked Rebellio. I doubt she'll help us, she's 100% on their side."

"No, the person who's working for Floch isn't our Ana, not really. It's a complicated situation, she doesn't have a choice in her current state, we just need to wake her up." They all stared at me for some time in silence so I continued. "Our only hope to get her back is to trigger something emotional in her. For that, we need her and Levi to meet. But since we can't get Levi to her now, we need to bring Ana here, somehow." "And how do we get her here?", Connie asked, frustrated. "We don't."

Everyone looked over at general Magath. "I've seen that woman operate in our trenches, she's a menace, a true island devil. Over there in shiganshina, we thought our attack couldn't be stopped, Commander Srijokowitsc proved us wrong. We came here with about 500 men, that woman killed at least 230 of them." Levi's team had known for some time now how dangerous Ana could be but even they looked shocked. It was quiet, I was thinking of a way about how to get to her but nothing came out.

"We use her own tactics against her." I tunred to look at Levi who had just made the suggestion. "Trigger a breakdown, like she did with that guy over there." He nodded towards Reiner. Levi took a deep breath before finsihing his idea. "Tell her, Maggie and I are dead." My eyes widened. "You think that will work?", I asked and he nodded. "I think so too.", Falco spoke up. "Ana told me about you a few times. About her family at home that she wanted to see again." Levi stared at the blonde boy, tension was thic around us so I decided to cut it.

"Alright, Mikasa and Armin come with me, just in case. We take the horses and will be back in no time." I didn't even wait for the others' approval and just got up to walk over to the horses. Mikasa and Armin silently got up as well. The three of us arrived at the fortress not long after. Armin had told me that he noticed Floch sending Ana on night patrols which she as probably doing now. And really, upon arriving, we saw Ana walk over the court. "She probably has an order to kill us at sight so if she notices us, just run, I have a plan.", I said and called out to Ana before the others could comment on my idea.

Ana started running towards us the second she saw ne waving. "Oh shit, she's faster than I thought, at least she's not shooting.", I mumbled to myself, running around a corner. Mikasa pulled the rifle out of Ana's hand as she came around said corner short later. Now it was her, unarmed, against three armed soldiers, she stopped for just a second to assess the situation, which I used. "We're not here to fight Ana. We're here to give you this." I held out my hand and Ana stared at the ring resting on it. It was Levi's, I'd taken it from besides the river where Zeke had blown himself up.

Ana stared at it, giving me time to keep talking, her resolve was already cracking, I saw it. "He's dead, Ana... and so is Maggie, the tumbling walls earlier today destroyed the orphanage, none of the kids made it." Ana was still staring at us, eye twitching slightly. One of her hands went to her head as I saw her slowly waking up. It was wokring. "I'm sorry, Ana." The apology was genuine, it pained me watch her fall to her knees, crying.

Anastasia

"Please don't, this can't be real, please-" Hanji leaned down to me, pulling me into a tight hug. "Thank god you're back. He's alive, Ana, both of them are, we just had to wake you up somehow." She looked up at me, wiping her face. "Yes?" "Yes.", I reassured her. "Don't ever do this to me again. I couldn't-" "I know, I'm sorry." "Thank you for bringing me back." When getting back to my feet, I could feel the exhaustion catching up to me.

I barely realised that Armin and Mikasa were hugging me too now. "I'm so tired... just need a nap, yeah?" Floch had never ordered me to sleep so I didn't, in my controlled state, I couldn't give in to the feeling but now it was all crashing down on me at once. I heard Hanji calling my name from far away when I passed out.