𝐕𝐀𝐋𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐈𝐀 | 𝐋. 𝐀𝐂𝐊𝐄𝐑𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐍

𝐈𝐈𝐈.𝐈𝐕

❝𝐓𝐖𝐎 𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐄 𝐒𝐌𝐀𝐋𝐋 ones coming from the east!"

Levi was flying through the air, the rattling of his gear roaring in his ears.

He veered right toward a five-meter Titan pawing at the rooftop of an old tavern. At the very top, its prey—a female Scout whose gas cylinders had run dry—fumbled with a couple of bloodstained tanks that Levi suspected she'd scavenged from the corpse of a comrade. The large boulder clogging the interior gate had severed the teams on this side of the Wall from the supply wagons, leaving everyone to make do with whatever they could find; even if it meant rummaging through corpses.

The Titan slammed a grimy, bloody hand on the rooftop, and part of it crumbled to pieces. The Scout screamed, scrambling back. In minutes, the Titan would be on her, shoving her down his throat and into his foul gullet.

Levi pressed harder on his gas trigger. He adjusted the grip on his swords, wielding his right one in a reverse grip. Anchoring a hook in the soft flesh behind the Titan's ear, he swept around its head and slashed his blades through its eyes—it screeched, slapping its hands over its steaming eyes.

He reeled back his wire, shooting a new one into the Titan's neck. Levi moved in to bury his blades in its flesh, and the nape came away cleanly, evaporating into a fine red mist.

The tiles shifted under his boots when Levi touched down on the rooftop, soaked head-to-toe in Titan blood—the Scout had backed up against the chimney, her gas cylinders sitting forgotten in her lap. Her skin was paler than the whites of her wild, widened eyes, and tears carved through the thin layer of grime crusted on her face.

"What are you waiting for? Refuel your gas and get going!" he commanded.

She nodded frantically and switched out her cylinders.

Levi wiped the back of his hand across the side of his face. He held out his hand in front of him, clicking his tongue: Titan blood steamed on his knuckles, staining his hand a grisly crimson.

Disgusting. He recalled the first time Titan blood had touched his skin. Hardly a month had flown by since he, Isabel, and Farlan had left the Underground, so the muck and sleaze of the city were still fresh in his mind.

When those first drops had hit his cheek, it was as if someone had forced his head into a bucket of refuse, but it was nothing compared to the gut-wrenching, scalding sensation that followed. He'd wanted to claw his skin away, thinking that would be the only way the burning would stop. That night, when he'd dragged himself to his quarters, he'd scrubbed at his skin until it turned an ugly red.

Now, he didn't even blink when a drop landed on him. He simply kept moving, moving on to his next target.

"Don't stop, keep going!" came from one of the roads below. On the ground, the recruits escorted the horses to safety. They struggled, the horses thrashing and neighing as the recruits rushed them toward Shiganshina's now-blockaded inner gate. The Beast Titan throwing a boulder at the Wall had eaten away at the horses' composures. The panicked look on all the recruits' faces helped matters none—a horse's temperament echoed the one of its rider.