This is My Last War (Attack on Titan // LeviHan) - Part 3

Sealed

"You do not need to do this, Levi."

Ah, Hanji. Why has reality not turned you into someone who has no compassion anymore?

Waking up in a world that had thoroughly changed in only a few weeks, where once enemies had become allies, and those he had trusted unquestionably were now suspect, was a lot to digest. Adding to the turmoil, Levi grappled with a level of physical weakness he had never known before. His limbs quivered with the slightest exertion, his missing eye sent pulsating waves of pain through his head, and his hand was no longer of any use.

The passage of time had been cruel during his unconsciousness, with the world shifting beyond recognition. His days as a soldier had come to an abrupt and final end. It was... stunning. Kind of like one of his worst nightmares, actually. Only that he was wide awake.

"Won't you talk to me?" Hanji begged him.

What could he say? She was talking, talking, talking, wanting what from him? His blessing? His forgiveness? He had neither to give right now. Sure, he didn't necessarily have to go along with the craziest plan in the existence of humanity. But he also kind of had to. There were situations where it didn't matter how you framed them – you were not left with a choice, only with an obligation.

This was one of these situations. If it was this crystal clear to him, it had to be just as crystal clear to her. Only that she didn't want to realize it yet.

He turned his head towards her, relieved her reddened eyes were no longer visible in the gloom that enveloped everything now that night was falling outside. Hanji crying helplessly at his bedside was part of the nightmare he had found himself in so suddenly. She could not be weak, not while he was unable to be by her side to protect her and their cause. She knew that, goddammit.

"Can't," he managed to say. There was a growing lump in his throat and it wasn't the aftereffect of being bedridden for weeks. The world had turned too many times, he was alive, which was a "miracle" according to the doctor - but they still needed to part. Not that it was in any way surprising. They had lived on borrowed time forever, at least since Shiganshina. That she had to know too. Why cling to false hope so stubbornly?

Hanji's urgency made her voice quiver, a tone he rarely heard from her. "I know what you must be thinking. But I had to do it. Can't you understand?"

The word "it" carried a heavy weight, and he grasped the many layers involved, thanks to the Monkey's detailed, gleeful disclosures about what had happened in his absence. The rest though? Did he understand? No, he definitely did not. What they were going to do was insane.

"You let them inject Titan serum into me," he confronted her just to say something, his voice sounding strange to his own ears, grating and unsettling. It wasn't even the most disturbing thing he had heard after waking up, but the one he wanted to hold on to the most in a defiantly spiteful and childish way. The idea of Titan serum repulsed him, and surely, she knew him well enough to realize the depth of his disgust. Worse, his entire blood was now tainted with the Monkey's filth. He felt like putting a knife to his veins to cleanse himself of the man's essence until nothing of it remained.

"I'd do it again to save you," she moved closer, dragging the chair she sat on across the floor. "Your life is more important than your sensitivities."

A bitter laugh escaped his throat. If there was anything else that repulsed him more than Titan serum, it was the idea that he wasn't in control of his own decisions. That, she knew too. The Ackermans, a breed of slaves, hadn't they always known?

"Don't show me your cynical side," her voice turned harder. "I mean it. Your life is everything to me. I'm nothing without you. This world is nothing without you. I always knew that I would be the first to die and..."