Indefinitely - Armin X Reader

Chapter 16 | Alive

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On the battlefield

I squeezed Armin's hand before letting go and standing up, and started jogging out of the room with the blonde trailing behind me. As I reached the doorway of the room we had been in, I noticed Mikasa was standing near the edge of the balcony that a few others were standing on, although they were all taking off. Instead of following them, I started walking over to her with Armin still following me; I wanted to take one last look at the city that I had called home for the past 5 years. She was overlooking the maze like streets below, almost in a trance, and I walked over to her. From this angle we could just see over the tops of the buildings surrounding us, and it was haunting to see the upper-half's of titans poking up every so often. So many buildings were beyond repair, crumbling and in shambles from where titans had thrown themselves, not to mention the damaged rooftops from their grasping hands and our own comrades landing harshly so often. Now that I was at Mikasa's side, I placed my hand on her shoulder and squeezed comfortingly. I could imagine what she was feeling.  

 "Mikasa, we have to move." I urged, shaking her gently, but she was transfixed on something down in the street below, and when I followed her gaze I saw she was staring at the good titan.

"Look!" She whispered, pointing at the titan, and what I saw filled me with horror.

It's arms were being devoured by an overwhelming horde of titans, all of them attached by pure jaw power to the different parts of its body as it fought to break free. Together they formed a grotesque mob of mottled bloody flesh as they struggled and staggered all over the place, the good titan trying fruitlessly to escape, blood smeared all over its body. It seemed like that most of the titans in the vicinity had been drawn towards HQ, sensing humans and arriving only to find the titan, and now it was being overwhelmed.

"Cannibalism?" Armin whispered, horrified. "Can he not regenerate his body parts like the others can?"

"This may sound stupid, but I was hoping that he might be the key for us." Mikasa muttered, clenching her fists. "I thought he could break the cycle for man kind, and turn the tide just long enough to give us a little ray of hope." 

Reiner, Bertolt, Annie and Jean walked up to our small group as we watched the gross display below. Jean came to a stop beside me and I glanced up at him, and in return he put his arm around me and squeezed gently, trying to subtly comfort me. It made me smile to think that the boy who once never showed any emotion other than annoyance and only gave off an air of selfishness was being so kind to me today.

"She's right." Reiner murmured quietly, looking down at the good titan in disappointment as it struggled pointlessly. "He's too valuable to just let die; there's too much we can learn from him. I think it's perfectly clear that we should make our priority to keep the scavengers off him - he's no good to us ripped apart."

"Are you out of your mind?" Jean scoffed, whipping around from me to face the buff blonde. "We have a path out of this nightmare and you want to stay and fight?"

"Think about it."  Annie stated bluntly. "Having an abnormal as an ally would be an incredible advantage, right? A cannon has nothing on a titan who likes to rip apart his own kind."

"Can you even hear yourself?" Jean retaliated, growing impatient. I could see the fear rising behind his eyes as we lagged behind everyone else. Every other remaining cadet had escaped over the wall, leaving only us behind. Leaving with everyone else gave us a greater chance at making it to the wall, as it would be less likely we would be one of the few to get caught, however now we had lost that cover. We would be an easy target. "He's not like a new friend!"