An Ackerman's secret

40

"What's going on?!"

Armin grunted, lifting himself onto Annie while me and Mikasa pulled out the tongue from his leg. "It's thanks to Mister Zeke."

"Zeke?!"

"He woke up everyone who was asleep in the world of the path, where neither life nor death exists." Armin explained. "Every Eldian is connected to one another by the path. I think.. It's because the founder, Ymir, wants to be connected."

"Because she wants something from us."

Zeke?

I quickly turned around, seeing him looking up to the sky, attached to one of the bones.

My eyes landed on Levi, widening them as I watched him slice Zeke's head clean off.

A proud smile rose to my face. I knew how badly he wanted to complete Erwin's last order, it had been eating him up inside for ages.

And even though it may not mean so much anymore, I was happy for him that he finally did it.

"He did it." I whispered.

"The rumbling, it stopped?" Connie spoke slowly as we all looked around.

"You need to get out of here." Armin recovered, ordering us.

It was time for him to transform, blowing this all to pieces.

Perfectly timed, Falco flew over us and we all hooked into him, along with Annie who had only just emerged from her titan.

As soon as we said our goodbyes and landed on Falco's back, my eyes met Levi's.

"You did it."

He nodded, his face unbothered. "I said I would."

"I always believed you would." I smiled, grabbing his hand.

I twisted my head to look at Moblit, "You okay?" I knew he definitely wasn't after losing Hange, but he seemed to be dealing with it well.

He gave a small smile, "Yeah."

Falco flew us towards the front where the others were. As we neared, we could see that they had managed to blow up Eren's neck, decapitating him.

But there was this big shiny looking thing that was trying to reattach itself to Eren's head, which I guessed was what Gabi was talking about earlier.

"Jean!!"

"Pieck!!"

We caught sight of them and quickly grabbed onto them as we flew past, reminding them to hold on tight.

I stared back at where we just fought as we created distance between us and the explosion that came off from Armin's titan, blowing the whole thing up like he said he would.

Falco began lowering to the floor once we were a safe distance away.

"Look! The bones are gone, the rumbling has stopped too."

"Is Eren.. dead?"

I widened my eyes, my chest tightening up and my breath quickening. This is what we wanted, but now that it has happened, it's killing me.

We climbed off Falco's back as he came out of his titan.

Him, Pieck and Gabi all ran to their families, warming my heart slightly to see them reunited.

"It's not like I don't have regrets." Connie spoke. "But.. We.. did the right thing, didn't we? We stopped the rumbling."

"We did." Sasha agreed.