the hilt | eren jaeger

t w e n t y f i v e - J.D.

"Why are you here...?" The man asked, his eyes cold and unrelenting.

"Wish I knew myself."

He cocked his head to the side a bit, "Don't play coy. I don't give a shit. You should be dead."

"Everyone keeps telling me that."

He slammed his fist into the wall of the building adjacent to him. A grunt came out as he looked up at me, enraged, "Do you know how to answer anything seriously?!? Now is not the time for your petty games, cadet."

"I don't know anything important, if that's what you're asking here."

"So you get taken by the enemy for four months, and have nothing to show for it? You're a piece of shit."

"I was comatose for most of that. Nobody would tell me anything, anyways."

"Who all was there?"

"Reiner. A woman who turned into that ugly titan that had a backpack. The Beast Titan's holder-- His name was Zeke. And... And Bertholdt."

My eyes shut and tried to blink away the tears before they could go anywhere, but it was too late. They already fell. They rolled down my cheeks and collected at the bottom of my chin, where they splattered to the ground below us. They made no sound.

"Where were you?"

"We were on a boat-- We never left it. It seemed to be docked on our island though."

"Our island?" He raised a brow.

An unsure look befell my face as my eyes whipped around, wondering why I knew that, "Yeah-- Yeah. Our island. We didn't go anywhere near their civilization. There were crew members on the boat, but they never spoke to me."

"How do I know you're not lying?"

"You don't. You have to accept my words as facts, of which they are."

He sighed and placed his hand over his brow bone, tilting his head back. His hair parted around the sides of his face in the light.

"You could just be covering for those sick bastards."

"I'm not, I already told you that."

"Did the Beast Titan put you up to this? Have you reintegrated into our society just to betray us?"

"No-- I swear they did nothing of the sort." 

"I've gone outside these walls before. I've never seen any water source big enough to hold boats."

"We were docked on the ocean." It had been a fantasy for all of them for so long. 

"So it's real..." Levi looked off into the distance for a few moments.

"It always has been." I replied.

His irises met with mine, "How'd you end up back here-- It's too far to walk by yourself, you should've gotten eaten. They clearly didn't take you along with them willingly."

"The night they left the boat, I left too."

"Great. Extremely descriptive."

"What the hell do you want from me, Levi?!? Do you want me to grovel and cry at your feet about how my life was these past few months? Hm?!? I don't care enough to help you out anymore." I didn't know what to do anymore.

His voice was cold and unforgiving, "You're a Scout." Those words did not feel the way they should have.

"Huh?"

"You're a Scout. You may have been gone all that time, but you're still one of us, and there's only ten left." His tone did not agree with what he was saying.