Blue and White - Levi Fanfiction

Ch. 97 - Campfire

"Instead of staring each other down," Hange said, looking up from the stew she was making, "could some of you help me?"

"Of course," I said right away, standing from the cart and gently prying Levi's hand from my own to offer up my help.

He shifted slightly but did not stir from his sleep thankfully, and it was admittedly still so strange to think that he was sound asleep around so many strangers. When it was just us, alone and safe in our bed at home, he even now still had such difficulty getting and staying asleep - the result of untold trauma going unchecked for so long, but gradually there was progress and he was getting so much better at it.

But still, getting blown the hell up was enough to make sure he slept? If I knew that before, I'd have done it myself!

...I'm kidding, of course.

I fixed the cloaks and blankets over him, working to keep him as warm as possible. Any loose fabric had been gathered up, because he needed to be comfortable - or as comfortable as he could be while out in the woods. Satisfied that he was as comfy as could be given the circumstances, and still deep in sleep for now, I walked over and crouched down next to Hange, helping to peel some of the vegetables she had out. As I began to work, there was an indignant humph from my right. I turned my head, meeting the steely eyes of General Magath.

"To think we'd all be here taking a meal together after all the time we spent trying to kill each other," he said. "It's interesting. What changed your mind? You know you'll get the world you want if you just let Eren Yeager go. That heaven for you island devils."

...Is that really what he thinks we want? For the rest of the world to die? Really? He must not have had a good conversation with Hange yet. The most curious human being on this planet – there's no way she'd want those from around the world to die before she could learn everything she could.

And I certainly didn't want that, either. Me and my damn bleeding heart. Stopping Eren was the goal now. I couldn't allow this mass genocide to continue. I just wasn't sure how to stop it... which is why, I suppose, that this alliance had formed.

"We were so close to keeping Eren and Zeke from coming into contact," Magath continued. I returned my attention to the food, dumping some of the vegetables into the stew. "If only you hadn't helped them out."

"Like I explained, General," Hange spoke up, "none of us want genocide. We wouldn't have scurried off to a forest to lay low and make stew if we did."

"So you're saying you finally see whose side justice is on," Magath said in a snarky sort of way.

His words left a bad taste in my mouth. Justice wasn't black or white, it never had been. On paper? Sure. In practice? Never. He was a general, for Goddesses' sake. Did he really not understand that? Even war was never just black or white. I wanted to tell him off for that kind of off-handed comment, but I held my tongue. I only just met the guy. I didn't want to get on his bad side immediately, but honestly, it seemed he held us all in that regard anyway.

At any rate, it seemed like I didn't have to say anything at all, because Jean got rubbed the wrong way by that comment, too.

"Justice?" Jean repeated. "Were you just talking about justice? You? So we were the bad guys for fighting against those Titans you people kept sending over to us?"

Our people, I fought not to add.

"Listen up," Jean continued. "The reason we fought as hard as we did is because we didn't want to be eaten alive by Titans! And you're over there trying to say that's something only devils would do?"

"Yeah," Magath affirmed with nonchalance oozing from his lips, lifting a bottle to his mouth, as though he'd done nothing wrong in his life, "you do look like devils to me. All our concerns about Paradis have come true, and now you're working on destroying the world. This is the result of all your hard-fought battles, is it not?"