Together We Fall (Childhood Friends Sequel// Levi Ackerman Fanfiction)

Chapter Fifteen

Everyone was so preoccupied with the capture of the Colossal Titan that they didn't even realize that Nora had disappeared. It was one of the biggest wins for humanity, so the disappearance of one Survey Corps soldier had been put to the back of their mind.

Annie could feel the sweat pouring down her forehead as she huffed out heavy breaths. The girl on her shoulders was small and light, but she didn't want to be rough or distress the girl's body any more than she already had. She wasn't much bigger than Nora, but the curly haired girl was deathly thin and easy to carry.

She could see the gate in front of her that led to Wall Maria. People only stared at her for half of a second before retreating into their homes. Her lungs screamed for her to stop running; in all of those years frozen in that crystal, she had lost her endurance.

Her pace slowed until she heard heavy footsteps resounding behind her. She didn't even have to turn to know it was the strong man she had called her "comrade" as a child. Annie squeezed her blue eyes shut, reminding herself that Nora had put her trust in her, and she couldn't go back on her word.

"Annie!" Reiner's deep voice yelled behind her. Her mouth opened in shock as she felt the overwhelming weight push her from behind.

She allowed herself to fall without putting her hands out. If she let go of the girl haphazardly slung over her shoulders, then Nora would have crashed even more painfully to the ground. Annie carefully rolled the girl from her shoulders.

Blood was slowly trickling out of a wound from Nora's forehead from when Annie had fallen. After her neck had snapped, she had fallen backwards, causing her to hit her head and cause her hair to be matted and caked in a mix of blood and dust.

And with a pull in her chest, she could see the small amount of blood that was staining her thighs.

"Annie, what the fuck do you think you're doing?" Reiner asks. He was out of breath and already pissed off. The marks around his eyes that proved he was a Titan shifter were slowly fading away, steam hissing off of his cheeks.

"She deserved to be treated like a human. She wasn't like us. She's a human being, and she was carrying the future of humanity." Annie stepped in front of Nora's body, arms outstretched a frown plastered to her face. "I wasn't about to let her be crushed by you."

"She's dead, what does it matter?"

Annie could feel the anger bubbling in her chest. It didn't matter if Nora was dead, alive, or clinging to life... she made the girl a promise that she'd keep her safe, and she was keeping that promise until her last breath.

"We were friends with them for years! Did you feel nothing?" Annie took a few heavy steps towards Reiner, knuckles turning white in her clenched fists. "We lived with them! We escaped the hell of our previous lives with them!"

She surprised Reiner with a punch to the jaw, causing him to stagger backwards a few steps. Annie threw another punch, easily being blocked by the bigger male. "You had no problem killing them before! You killed Marco and didn't hesitate!"

"Don't bring up Marco!" Annie's eyes were tearing as she threw sloppy haphazard punches. She was shaken to her core at the mention of her fellow cadet. Reiner was easily able to block her unorganized attacks, not even fazed. She looked down at her hand, big tears falling from her crystal blue eyes.

"Go ahead, bite your hand. Turn into a Titan and stomp on her until she's unrecognizable," Reiner taunted.

"Just leave us! There's no reason to follow us!"

"There is a reason!" Reiner tried pushing past the blonde to get to girl who laid dead not far from them. Annie grabbed his arm attempting to flip his large frame onto the ground. She was tired, and Reiner was angry and filled with adrenaline, easily shaking her hands from his body. "You've always been looking out for her. There's no reason why you'd kill her and run off with her body."