Retrieving •Eremika

Chapter 14: Tangled in a Wrangle

Eren's P.O.V.
My mind had not even registered my actions properly before I went for it. I felt my fist connect with Jean's face and a bone-shattering crack echoed in my ears. Mikasa staggered backwards, her eyes fixated on me, dumbfounded. A slight flush was rising in her cheeks, yet she made no effort to hide it behind her scarf, her gray eyes widening to show the entire pupil.

As I kept my gaze on Mikasa for an extra second, an acute agony throbbed in my chest. Jean's fist was buried in my abdomen, exerting all his force into the punch. My powers had nearly healed me entirely but my ribs were still relatively fragile. The connective tissues within presumably snapped due to the degree of immense pain I was feeling. My body reluctantly doubled over, throat constricting, and a spray of blood stained the ground below me. I cupped my chin instinctively with my hand, feeling the warm liquid trickle and gather at the lowest point of my palm. Regardless of the excruciating pain embedded in my lungs, making every move unperceivably pain-staking, I straightened myself to face the enemy, who was clutching his blood-streaked face.

Seeing my opportunity, I frailly plundered forwards, tackling him, pinning him to the ground by his shoulders. He dug his fingers into my arms, attempting to get a better grab of me so he could hurl me off him. I towered above him, blood dripping from my chin and splattering onto the parched ground. My hands were quivering, the pain in the chest aggravating.

"How the hell could you?" I hollered, my voice hoarse, "Why the hell did you do that just to piss me off?" Tears riveted down my cheeks.

"Frankly, Mikasa is precious to me," Jean snorted, "I like her, but you don't, so back off."

"Say that again," I challenged, inching my face closer to my opponent, "Say that again, and I will end you here right now."

"I," the trainee pinned below wheezed, "Like her."

"I love her, horseface!" I bellowed, droplets of blood specking Jean's face.

"You can't really do anything about it now, Yeager, she detests you," he snickered, bringing his knee up to shove me off. He had aimed for my knees, which bent in instantly, causing me to face-plant the arid ground. My ribcage collapsed upon impact, the breath knocked out of me. The boy slipped out uneasily, groaning, and wrapped his hands around both my wrists to bring me into a headlock.

I heard a yelp, and then the pressure on my wrist loosened. A heavy thump announced Jean's contact with the ground several meters from where I laid.
End of Eren's P.O.V.

Mikasa's P.O.V.
"Why?" I wailed with my arms entwined with Jean's, holding him in a headlock instead, "I'm not in the slightest bit interested in you that way. You broke Eren's ribs. They have just healed from a major fracture. And for that, I don't think I should even be friends with you anymore. I told you about Eren because you asked, not so that you can go off and pick a fight with him."

My focus diverted to Eren, who had propped himself up with one elbow but was spluttering insuppressibly. Blood pooled from under his chin, one of his hands grasping the side of his body where the ribs were once snapped. His fatigued emerald eyes were drooping, the vibrancy drained from him.

Jean, on the contrary, was nowhere near being as enervated as Eren, slightly stretching and twisted his neck to wrench himself out of the headlock. The only evidence of a wrangle was the darkening bruise on his right cheek, below his sockets.

I slowly released him from the headlock, skeptical of him trying to charge at Eren again. I scurried to Eren, kneeling beside him.

His hand crept over mine. "Mikasa," he slurred, sucking in a wet and rattled breath.

"Shh, Eren," I swallowed, my eyes sweeping over him, accessing his wounds. I knew deep down that if his ribs were not previously fractured, he would've triumphed over Jean. Questions I wished to ask him arose in my mind. How did he recover so rapidly? Was it my sheer imagination that he had lost his forearm that day?

"Mikasa, puh-leaze, get Hanji. S-she'll know what to do with me," he gurgled, choking on his own blood.

My arms went under his shoulders and his knees. His limp body slumped in my arms as I carried him, heaving and subtly lurching with every step, uphill to the Survey Corps' infirmary. The trainees, who had formed a circle around us three, eventually offered assistance, only to hear my rejection as I did not want anyone to further hurt Eren. I did not cast a single glance back at Jean.

I laid him gingerly onto the infirmary bed, awaiting Hanji's arrival. Despite his tremendous injuries, he gave me a ghastly smile. I couldn't bring myself to return his affection. I was hurriedly ushered out of the room when Hanji forced her way in, blocking my view of Eren.

He would pull through, of course he would. He always did.
End of Mikasa's P.O.V.

Eren's P.O.V.
Streams of light flooded into my vision as my eyes cracked open to see Hanji in a chair beside my bed, cradling a notepad in her arm, scribbling notes onto the paper. The room was evenly lit by the sunlight penetrating through the pink curtains drawn across the rail above the window. It was practically vacant, with nearly no furniture besides the sick bed and the plastic opaque chair in which Hanji was reclined in. I opened my mouth to speak, but a jab of pain pierced my windpipe, causing me to wince instead.

"You shouldn't sit up yet, your old wounds reopened up but you're alright now," Hanji murmured, eyeing the pulse monitor, "Try not to move a lot. Your powers will fix you in a day or two. It took a whopping five days last time because both of your legs were broken, your hand was missing and your ribs were broken. This time two bones were snapped but your lungs were punctured so you had some problems with regeneration when they started to collapse. I stitched you up though and you were pretty fast to heal once the bone splinters was removed."

A window back to the fight from a while ago. That window was intact; the fresh flashbacks surfacing in my mind. Mikasa.

"Mikasa, the girl who brought me in, where is-" I began, stuttering, searching around the room for the door, and perhaps Mikasa waiting for me to wake from my coma. She was not present.

"Oh, the girl with the short black hair? She's gone to get a drink. She'll be back soon," Hanji explained and a wave of comfort deluged me, "She told me to say to you that she has some things to tell you."

Mikasa wished to tell me something. I wondered what it could be. Did she loathe me now, just like Jean had said? What did she have to say? Thorns of panic embedded themselves in my heart.
End of Eren's P.O.V.

A/N: Please vote~~ thanks readers!~~Leena Yeager