The Pain Made Me Strong ~ Levi x Reader

Chapter 26

Y/n's POV-

We took off at full speed towards the boulder, wasting none of our precious time that the decoy squad has allowed for us, as soon as Eren transforms I’m sure it will attract many of the titans from the other side of town back towards us.

     As we grew close enough to see it, Mikasa went to the right of Eren and I drifted towards the left. Eren transformed in the air and as he grew into the Titan we had seen earlier, a flash of bright yellow lightning that sounded loudly of thunder shook the souls of all in Trost at the time. 

     Since he had been in the air while transforming he came crashing into a building next to the boulder. ‘Idiot,’ I thought. As the smoke cleared, he began to stand and let out a roar reminiscent of that sound Armin and I had heard while looking for Mikasa. 

     Seeing Eren’s body next to the boulder was disheartening, it was huge and by any human standard, there was no way he could lift that boulder. We just had to sit and hope that there was something special about Eren’s titan body structure. 

     Eren stood staring at the boulder as if he had forgotten himself, Mikasa was standing closest to him and we all watched as he turned to face her. He didn’t seem like himself, he was acting in unconsciousness. Before any of us could react, Eren punched where Mikasa was standing.

     Mikasa went flying to the side of a wall and Eren lifted his left fist to punch once more, but it didn’t seem like Mikasa could tell. Our squad leader yelled out for her to watch out and she jumped, but she didn’t flee, she went and grabbed onto Eren’s face and began to try to reason with him.

     Never in my life had I felt so trapped where I stood, I couldn’t understand it, every part of me told me to get Eren out of there and leave, the plan hadn’t worked, or at the very least I should go and get Mikasa away from him, but I couldn’t move. It was like a spell had been cast over my limbs and all my thoughts couldn’t line up in my brain to allow for the actions to take place.

     Eren went to punch Mikasa once more, but she fled, leaving him to deliver himself a hard blow to his own face, falling to the ground and lying motionless against the boulder. I watched terrified as Rico sent a red flare into the air, the mission had failed and there was nothing I could have done. I felt...small...weak.

     I could faintly hear them as they spoke on what was to happen next in the operation. We noticed titans approaching from all sides. Many of them were saying we should leave before there are too many titans for us to take on. But they wanted to leave Eren here to rot. Mikasa sent them a death glare that even I could feel from my far position. 

     The words they spoke, the way they looked at Eren in disgust, the fear of Mikasa, Armin, and I losing Eren a second time, all these allowed me to propel myself in their direction. I landed next to Mikasa and began to shout, not even realizing it.

     “No! No, we can’t give up, we can’t withdraw, not yet, not without Eren. He’s worth so much to humanity this is a mistake, we can fix this. I don’t know how, but I just have a feeling, you have to trust me on this! Please! Just stall, stall a little longer I know Eren will come back to his senses!” 

     “Are you crazy! Do you want us all to die out here! He’s just like all the rest of those monsters!” one of the squad members yelled.

     Our squad leader looked very conflicted, we sat in anxious silence as he looked around at all of us, trying to figure out what it was he needed to do.

     “Ian! Snap out of it! What are you waiting for? Give the order. Conserve all the manpower we can. This was the right call. Hey, it’s not your fault! Come on! Look, this plan was doomed from the start! We all get that. Was it worth a shot? Sure, whatever! We did the best with what we had! But all we’ve got left now is going back over the wall,” the man yelled once more.