He Told Me to Live

27 | The Past

"How did plugging up the wall go?" I asked, noticing a bloody handkerchief wrapped in a tissue in Levi's hand. "Are you alright?"

"Eren just overused his power a bit." He walked up to the window and opened the curtains. "You haven't left your office in a few days. Are you okay?"

I nodded.

"Is it because Cinder had to go to jail?"

"That was inevitable. And I have left my office; I helped Hange try to figure out what was in the vials that Kenny provided." I cleared my throat. "I wasn't used to talking that much."

"And that's why I told you to talk to the cadets."

"That includes when we were meeting with Queen Historia."

He glanced at the empty tea cup at the corner of my desk. "Did you figure anything out?"

I shook my head, tapping at the wood of my desk in thought. I noticed the wax seal Isa gave me in between the pages of a nearby book, deformed and somewhat melted, the difference between the rose side and the flat side unnoticeable to most.

If the true form of titans are human, then how exactly did they turn out the way they did? Only the contents of the vial has shown how it can turn people into titans, but such a mass population agreeing to it?

"Your thinking face is hard for you to hide."

"As far as I'm concerned, it looks the same as my normal face." There was another member in the 104th class: Ymir. The one that Historia adored. "Eren had told us about a conversation between Ber- um."

"Just say the Colossal Titan."

"Well, he told us about a conversation between the Colossal Titan and Ymir."

Levi needed a moment to recall. "Right, the snarky brat that can turn into a titan."

"She said that she spent 60 years wandering outside the walls as a titan. She said it was a nightmare." I hummed. "She never said how she turned into one."

Levi sat on the chair on the other side of my desk; I put another one there since Levi seemed to have claimed the one he was seated on now. "Commander Pixis said that we should test how it works on a person."

"How what works?"

"The contents of the vial."

My tapping at the desk ceased. "Who is it going to be used one?"

"...Me, Erwin suggested."

"But- Why would you even-"

"Hange suggested you, knowing that you would be willing, but..."

"But what?" I stood up. "I would be willing. Especially if you were the other option! You're humanity's strongest soldier, what will it do without you? And if you were to go haywire like how Rod Reiss went, I don't-"

He lifted his hand and I stopped. "I offered myself because I don't think I'd be able to kill you if you were to go crazy."

I was about to say something. I had no idea what was about to come out of my mouth because, for once, I wasn't thinking before I speak, but I was interrupted by a knock on the door.

"Come in." Levi said.

Eren opened the door, saluted, and said, "Captain...s, can we go see Commander Shadis?"

Levi nodded and knocked on the desk to tell me to follow.

•••

"Commander Shadis," Eren started. When he turned, Eren saluted. "I need to speak to you."