Humanitys' Strongest Weapon (Shingeki no Kyojin fanfic)

53; forest of Giant trees

They had chosen a secure area with plenty of trees to escape in case of a sudden titan appearance. Armin and Xyra shared a horse while Reiner and Jean shared the other horse. It didn't take long before the horses got exhausted carrying two bodies on top of it. Also, it wouldn't be practical to share a horse while the female titan is somewhere leading an army of titans in its wake.

Jean has been trying to call his horse by whistling, while Reiner was rummaging his bag for bandages. He offered to clean up Armin's wound to avoid it getting infected. Thankfully, Armin didn't look like he'll pass out any second.

"How is your 3D Maneuver Gear, Armin?" Reiner asked, taking the bandage out and unrolling it slowly.

"It's fine. The bindings released like they were supposed to, so it wasn't broken." Every 3D maneuver gear has an emergency safety unlock so the wielder can get off its gear in case of intanglement with a titan or accidents like Armin's.

"That titan really pounce on your horse violently. Thankfully, Xyra was able to help your fall or you might have much worse injury." Reiner sighed.

"It was quite something when those trees hit that titan." Armin agreed, looking totally worn out and energy deprived. He may not suffered physical injuries but that close encounter with that titan must have inflict some kind of trauma in him.

"I couldn't do anything other than toss trees to help you." Xyra stated. She sat in front of Armin while tucking her legs over one another, picking on the grasses absentmindedly.

"That's not true. Without you, we couldn't have bought them enough time to escape the titan." Reiner claimed solemnly, covering Armin's head injury with the bandage.

She smiled awkwardly. It was weird having a form of conversation with Reiner when they didn't converse much before embarking on this expedition. He was usually with Bertholdt and occasionally with Annie, even if Annie seems to fool everyone other than Xyra with her lone wolf image.

A whistle come out of Jean's lips. It is he's 56th attempt calling his horse, Xyra counted.

"How about you Xyra? Do you feel nausea or any pain?" Reiner asked.

Xyra shook her head. This action sent wisps of hair to hit her lightly on the cheeks after the thin elastic that tied her hair together was swept away in the middle of the chaos earlier.

"That's good to hear. But what do we do now? We've only got two horse." Reiner muttered. "It's not safe to travel with two people on each horses, we can't go further with tired horses. If Jean's horse comes back, all four us can move, but right now..." Reiner trailed off, clipping the bandaged area with a safety pin.

Right now, it's impossible. Xyra finished the sentence. Worst case scenario we'll have to leave one person behind. We have two horses, so we can take turns carrying the other person on each horse in order to keep the horses from tiring out quickly.

The question is: who is staying?

"We'll have to decide soon; It's a tough choice, but one of us has to stay here." Reiner started, making Jean turn to him in surprise. Reiner was a bit frank in addressing the situation.

Suddenly realization struck her, making her feel dumb for not thinking of it earlier. Am I or am I not an ESPer?

"Wait! I can-"

"Wait! Let's shoot up a flare first. If the formation moved straight ahead, the third troop in the fourth row should be nearby." Armin interrupted, not hearing Xyra's words.

Xyra, by the words of her good conscience, didn't react negatively at the interruption.

"Use the violet flare." Armin stated.