Until the End || Levi x Reader Insert Fanfiction

Ch 25- The Truth

Levi is quiet on his descent down the stairs to the basement. The sun was now high in the sky as he walked behind Eren, Mikasa and Hange. They had just spent several moments travelling through the barren town and ridding debris that prevented access to the basement. Now they were finally there, walking down the stairs, at the door to the entrance. Levi's hold on his lamp steadies as Eren reaches for his key, the one his father gave him many years ago. Eren's hands tremble slightly before they steady and he pushes the key into the lock. He struggles for several moments, twisting and turning before he stops in realisation and takes in a sharp breath. "What is it?" Hange asks from behind him, as Eren turns to them, eyes haunted.

"This... This key... It doesn't go to this door..." Everyone looks at him in disbelief. "You're kidding... I'm certain that's the key Dr. Jaeger had." Mikasa speaks up from next to Eren as Levi feels himself lose patience after the torturous events of the day. His voice is dull, duller than usual, and no one says anything when he speaks up. "Step aside..." He ignores Hange as they try to stop him before he kicks in the door in front of him, ripping it to the side. The others look in shock, but Levi simply continues forward. He finds a lamp and lights it up, using a match and allowing it to catch the flame. The room glows in soft, warm light allowing everyone to see what the basement holds.

It looked like a laboratory, with a single desk and craters and cabinets scattered around the room. "My dad was a doctor, so... he was always cooped up down here mixing medicine," Eren speaks up, as he observes the room. "That makes sense," Hange replies, picking up a bottle on a shelf. "In fact, if this medicine is all labelled correctly, it's stuff that's widely available. And since all the books here relate to medicine, at first glance, it's just a doctor's study. There's nothing suspicious here. It's like that's what he wants people to think." Levi then speaks as he observes the bottles and books scattered on the desk. "If you're hiding stuff from the Interior Police, you wouldn't want it out in the open... Quit standing around, brats. Erwin's hunches are rarely wrong."

Eren and Mikasa nod in obedience before looking around the basement for what they had travelled all this way for: answers. Several moments pass in deep silence, Levi letting out a deep sigh as he looks around the room. That is until Mikasa speaks up, crouching next to the desk. "Eren..." her voice catches the attention of the three others in the room as they look up to her. "There's a keyhole right here." Levi, Hange and Eren quickly approach seeing that it's true. On the left side of the desk was a keyhole ingrained in the wood. Eren reaches for his key once more, taking it out and pointing it to the keyhole. There is a moment of hesitance before he pushes it forward and sure enough, this time, the key had perfectly fit into place.

There is a click.

"It opened," Eren says, voice slightly wavering as he removes the key and pulls open a hidden drawer. "It's empty?!" Eren yells out in shock at the absence of anything within it, but Levi notices something as his dull voice reaches the silent room. "Look closer. It's a false bottom." He reaches forward and lifts the wood, revealing three books. "This smells like peppermint oil and charcoal," Hange says as she lifts a strange substance that had been in the drawer along with the books. "Were these treated to keep moisture and bugs away?" Levi looks down darkly as the four lift the books and place them on the table. "We were looking for something... and these must be it." Eren looks down at the first book in front of him. "I wonder what it was my dad wanted to show me." He mutters out before going to turn the first page of a book on the table.

Mikasa grabs Eren's hand gently in courage as they both turn the book. A second passes as the four look down. On the first page was a picture of a man, a woman and a child, the man being Eren's father, Grisha Yaegar. "This is... a portrait?" Eren asks before Hange goes to inspect it. "No... It's far too detailed for this to be drawn by a person." They say looking at the picture, before Mikasa speaks up. "That's Dr, Jaeger's writing," Mikasa says as she points behind the picture proportion. Hange turns it around and sees a paragraph written on the underside of the picture. "This is no illustration. Instead, this uses light reflected off a subject... and burns the image on special paper. It's called a photograph." They then hesitate a moment before reading the next few lines of words.