The Injury Conundrum

That's Gonna Come Back To Bite You

Eren was...shocked to say the least. In less than a day he'd gone from not even knowing that he could turn into a titan, or at least part of one, to knowing that there was a whole group of people who could. In fact, that was their defining feature if the name was to be believed.

"Wait, so...I can turn into a titan?" Eren asked.

Annie seemed confused for a second before saying, "Yes? What else would we be able to do?"

"Well, um, I didn't even really realize it was anything more than healing and regeneration until this morning when I kinda uh, messed up? And well I made this weird titan torso thing, or at least I think I made it but I'm not really sure-"

Annie put a hand up to stop him and asked, "What do you mean by messed up ?"

"Oh well, ever since I realized I can heal I've been testing it." Eren explained, placing a hand on the back of his neck sheepishly. "That's what I've been doing in the woods these past few weeks, and earlier when I was testing something startled me, so I messed up."

"Ok, while I am glad to know why you've been disappearing, that still doesn't explain exactly what messing up, or any of your testing, for that matter, entails."

"Um well for a while I thought it was only healing, so I was just using a knife and a pocket watch to test how long it took to heal from minor and major injuries. So earlier today I tried to see what would happen with some major blood loss and my hand uh, slipped."

Annie pinched her fingers along the bridge of her nose. Fuck this was so much worse than she thought it'd be. "Slipped?"

"I mean, I was pretty startled so..." Eren trailed off. He still hadn't figured out exactly what had made the noise next to him, but he also hadn't had anyone ask him what the fuck he was doing, craving open his own throat, so he assumed it was an animal.

"Eren what the fuck did you do."

"Ah well, there's this big artery that goes through your neck and I thought that it would be the perfect thing to test."

Annie, still in a crouched position, moved both of her hands over her face as she moaned, "You cut your fucking carotid artery!?"

"Um, well not exactly? As I said earlier I kinda slipped and took out a good chunk of my throat as well."

She lifted her head from her hands as she just stared at him for a while in complete disbelief.

This boy, this fucking boy. God, she had heard all of Reiner's and Bertholdt's stories about the stupid shit he'd done so far, but had taken their jokes about Eren being straight up unable to think with a grain of salt.

It seems that she should have taken them much more literally.

"So you took out your throat and then shifted, is that what happened this morning?" Annie asked.

To be honest, Eren was pretty confused as to why Annie was trying to make such a big deal out of this. I mean it ended without any real damage and even a new discovery for him, which was a big win in his book. "I think I passed out first to be honest."

"So you didn't have a goal in mind or anything before you passed out? There was nothing you wanted to do?"

Eren grimaced. "Well I wanted to live pretty bad, but what does that have to do with anything?"

Annie sighed. "Not that much, but you definitely didn't shift while passed out."

"Huh?"

"In order to shift we have to be awake, in a life-threatening state, and have a goal, or a reason I guess, for using the power."