Natural Strength || Levi Ackerman x Reader

Chapter 17: Vengeance

Two titans facing off against each other is no place for someone like you. As they fight each other with brute force, you know you have to stay away from the carnage or you'll end up getting yourself killed. You zip up a tree and fall to your ass to lean against the bark as exhaustion and anguish hit you full-force.

The type of pain where it's so intense that a numbing sensation is all you can describe it as. You put your blades back in their holders as they'll be no use for the time being and let your legs stretch out in front of you.

You can hear the fighting happening but getting farther away as you limply try to evaluate your situation and put aside emotions and personal feelings, but that is always easier said than done.

"(Y/N)!"

Your head snaps up from its dropped position and you look ahead, seeing the only person you wish to at the moment.

"(Y/N)!" he calls out again.

"Levi," you say shakily, but its enough to get his attention.

Levi gazes in your direction with relief written all over his face and also slight depression. You can tell he's seen the dead bodies of his squad. Levi bounds upward and lands next to you, pulling you into a hug with one hand on your head and other around your shoulders.

"Are you hurt?" he asks.

"No," you whisper into his chest.

The rumbling in the distance stops. You guess that one of them has finally won, and you pray that it's Eren, otherwise this entire expedition was a failure if it weren't labeled so already.

Levi pulls away and you look into his pale blue eyes as he puts a hand on your cheek. He is masking his emotions and he's now in his professional mode.

"(Y/N), I need you to pull yourself together. We have to go find Eren. There is always time to grieve the loses of our comrades, but now we have to save one," he speaks.

Without reacting to his sentences, you pull him in for another hug with you holding the back of his neck and rubbing the skin beneath his hairline with your thumb.

"I'm glad you're alive. I don't know what I would do without you," you confess sadly.

Levi stands, bringing you to your feet with him and puts his hands on your waist.

"We can't afford to be sentimental right now, you know this. Wait until we get the hell out of here," Levi mumbles.

You nod and let go. You remind yourself that there's still time after all of this shit to have once-in-a-lifetime moments. You take the pain you feel and mentally transition it into fuel to fight against this titan who took away hundreds of your comrades.

You take out your blades as does Levi and you're back to being the badass you always are.

"Let's go," you say, taking off into the trees with Levi by your side.

You soar up and over branches and through trees for almost five minutes before spotting the female titan running with a soldier slashing at her from every angle.

"Is that Misaka?" you ask.

"Yeah, she's fucking insane if she thinks she can take down that titan on her own," Levi replies.

The female titan is incapacitated for barely a few moments, giving you and Levi enough time to catch up. The titan gets to her feet and runs off again, but when Mikasa goes to engage in battle once more, Levi swoops down and grabs her while you stay on the side.

"We'll stay back for now," Levi commands, letting her go so she's in between the two of you. "Maintain current distance. She's slowed down a bit and the fight wore her out, too. If she bit the entire nape off, it's unlikely that Eren survived."

"He's still alive in there! This titan is different, it acts with purpose. If she wanted Eren dead, she could've simply crushed him. No, she needs him for something, but she also needs her hands to fight, so she's been holding him on her tongue," Mikasa insists with certainty.

"She has a point. This isn't a regular case we're dealing with here," you say.

"It is possible she just wanted to savor her food, in which case, it's likely he's already been swallowed. If so, he's dead," Levi replies calculatingly.

"He's alive!" Mikasa grits out.

You share one of those intense glances with Levi before he decides to be a sarcastic bastard.

"Someone's optimistic," he says.

"If you had just done your damn job and protected him like you were supposed to, we wouldn't be having this conversation!" she retorts.

A chamber of fury erupts inside you especially after spotting the disbelief on Levi's face and the fact that Levi felt almost the same way toward Erwin when Isabel and Farlan were killed. Before he can say anything, you step in.

"Listen here, you ignorant child!" you shout, causing her attention to be on you. "Are you saying that our comrades who died for Eren didn't do good enough? Are you saying the lives and futures they sacrificed didn't meet your standards of protection? Let me be the first to tell you that not every plan has a perfect outcome. You need to grow the fuck up and realize none of us are perfect fighters, not even your superiors. No one is invincible, so get off your ego and do what you're told or you may die next!"

Mikasa looks embarrassed that you called her out on her bullshit of an excuse. The fact of the matter is that Eren could be alive, Levi is in charge, and she needs to get with the program or go back to base.

"For the sake of argument, let's narrow our options," Levi says, getting back to the task. "First, we forget about taking her down."

"Agreed."

"No way!" Mikasa argues. "She's killed too many of our people for that. She's dead!"

Finally. She's wrong, but at least she's thinking about someone other than Eren.

"She's got defenses that none of us are trained to deal with. I'm telling you, it's a lost cause. Instead, we'll act on your assumption that Eren is alive. Focus only on freeing him before she exits the forest. We'll handle all the cutting, you find a way to distract her," Levi directs.

"We?" Mikasa asks, having the assumption he would want to do it alone.

"Levi and I are a team, Mikasa. It's not always about who's stronger or weaker because as long as there are people working together as a unit, everyone becomes stronger together," you say, readying your blades.

Mikasa stares blankly before nodding and diving down toward the ground as a diversion for you and Levi to get into position. You both glide behind the titan's head, and when you see Levi switch his swords around to face behind him, you know it's time.

The titan swiftly spins around and Levi slices up her arm to get to her eyes as you go under to target her torso for extra damage. She stumbles at the pressure and Levi jumps back to put on new blades before you both turn it up a notch and, with speed faster than either of you have managed before, you slice and cut all over the titan's body.

For our comrades. For Eren.

Levi goes for her nape in his own rage, but she covers it with her hand before falling on the ground against a tree. The two of you work in sync to show whoever this traitor is that there's still hope for humanity. You and Levi hop back once the titan's arms fall limp to momentarily catch your breaths.

Mikasa spots the nape being wide open and goes for it instantly without any regard for her own safety or anyone else's.