"No!" Armin shrieks, reaching out to grasp Eren's tunic as if he could physically hold him there forever, his friend's words ringing in his head.

'Armin. I want join Scouting Legion.'

He should have known better than to let impressionable, big-hearted Eren anywhere near those recruiters!

The olive-skinned boy frowns, reaching up to hold Armin's hands where they grip his shirt. "Yes. I join. I help."

Armin closes his eyes and resists the urge to sigh.

Of course he wants to help.

He thinks,

That's all he's done since the beginning.

"They have enough people to help." He says, striving for gentle, but knowing he probably sounds pleading. "You don't have to."

"I want to." He says, like it's that simple. Like he wasn't planning on signing up to get slaughtered.

"Eren, you don't understand, the Scouting Legion is dangerous! Titans are

monsters,

Eren!"

Eren flinches. "

I know!"

Blue-green eyes flash with anguish before hardening with a serious, dangerous glint. "Do not forget I were

there."

And that stops Armin up short. Because Eren

was

there that day. He had seen the soldiers and civilians disappearing into giant maws of blood-stained teeth. He had seen people getting crushed under uncaring feet and ripped from their homes by massive hands. All of this through the eyes of the same boy who had been terrified of a pregnant women. It must have been horrific, even more so than for the rest of them.

Armin wonders what Eren went through between the time the Titans attacked to when he appeared like a guardian angel to free Armin from his prison of rubble. Eren refuses to speak of that time, too.

Which obviously raises the question of why on earth he would want to face them again. Titans aren't some imaginary threat to him like they are for much of the population. They're real. They're the nightmares that haunt all three of them at night, alongside the memories of people they lost, and the sick feeling of relief that it wasn't them.

"Armin." He looks up at the soft murmur of his name. Eren's face is serious, but also pleading. "Let me help."

He hangs his head to avoid the imploring eyes. His eyes land on Eren's bare, dirty feet. They're soft and bereft of callous despite their constant abuse, and they turn inward slightly, giving him a vulnerable look. A fleeting though brings a small smile to his face, and he looks up at his friend.

"You know they won't let you in unless you wear the uniform. Including the boots."

Eren's face is priceless as it screws up in disgust. For a moment, Armin feels the brush of hope that he actually managed to dissuade him from sending himself off to his death. It dissipates when Eren shakes his head as if to clear it. "Don't care. I join. I wear boot."

Armin sighs and nods. "Fine. But you're telling Mikasa." Their farming contract wasn't over until the harvest. Hopefully that will give him enough time to convince Eren to forget about the Scouting Legion.

Please don't be stubborn about this, Eren.

Mikasa is not as quick to acquiesce as Armin had been. Eren flinches when she yells at him, demanding to know who had put the thoughts in his head. She calls him reckless and misguided and lacking self-preservation, and tells him about the times she saw the Scouts coming back decimated, giving back severed limbs and scraps of cloth to the family members of deceased soldiers. The problem of living in a gate-town, she says, was seeing every squad leave and see only a handful return, always with the same haunted, defeated look in their eyes.

It's enough to make Eren feel guilty about his decision, but not enough to change his mind about it. This is something he has to do.

Her rage and desperation are palpable, no matter how misplaced. He wishes he could reassure her, but he can't, not really. It's not as if he can tell them that he's more dangerous than any Titan they had seen before.

He's pretty sure he could take any Crius or Coeus Titan, even in his human form. After all, he knows of weaknesses that even Olympus isn 't aware of despite a decade of testing and experimentation on him. And on the off chance they met a Hyperion, there was only one he wasn't sure he could beat in a one-on-one fight.

The Female Hyperion. She 's a vicious variable, but the probability that they would meet is slim. Now that she had gorged herself on humans from within Wall Maria, she would most likely go out in search of another human nest to crack open. Female Titans were incredibly nomadic, and only ever settled down when they were gravid.

The Female Hyperion was probably far away by now.

"Eren are you even

listening

to me?"

"Yes, Mikasa. Scouting Legion dangerous. I know this before. I still join." It's like they'd forgotten that he had been there alongside them when they witnessed the Titans firsthand.

"Eren, you '"

"I are not stupid, Mikasa." he says quietly, and he watches her pause in her tirade.

"I don't think that, Eren."

"You do. You say I are simple. Not simple. Just not speak like you. Not know some things you do. Does not mean I not understand what is dangerous. I know Titans dangerous. Hu 'People dangerous too. You know more than others." He gives her a look that he hopes speaks for him, and she looks away.

After Hannes had explained about human kin groups, he had asked where his friends' family was. Mikasa had sat him down and told him about the ones who had killed her parents, about being taken in by Armin and his mother's father until a plague swept through the city and claimed him and Mikasa and Armin were left on their own. Those humans were dangerous. He thinks about the scientist from Olympus who tore him apart over and over and

over

again just to see if severed limbs grew back faster than flayed skin or ruptured organs; or if fire had a more detrimental effect than corrosive acids; or...

He thinks of his little one, whirling like a bladed typhoon to slice cleanly through a Titan's nape before the behemoth could even react to the sound of whirring gears.

Yes, humans could be dangerous, too.

"After harvest. I join."

Mikasa looks at him intently, and crosses her arms. "Then I'm joining too."

He and Armin immediately begin to protest, but she holds up a hand for them to be silent. "Any argument you make against me going can just as easily be made against you." '

Except that I'm a fifteen meter Hyperion Class Titan and you are not

'"So whatever you have to say, I'm not hearing it." She looks at the wall for a moment before refocusing her gaze back on him. "Someone's got to protect you out there."

The room is quiet while Eren thinks of a way to tell her just how little protection he actually needs, when Armin speaks up, hands clenched at his sides.

"If you both are joining, I am too. Don't give me that look!" He lifts his chin high and stares at them both in turn. "I'm not going to sit by as you both get yourselves killed, so either all three of us go, or no one goes!"

Eren scowls. How could he protect them if they went with him? If they put themselves into danger right alongside him? Why couldn't they understand that his goal was to protect his humans, not endanger them more?

He will just have to convince them to stay while he went.

"Then...we go after harvest."

He had time, he would convince them.

It becomes a battle.

Mikasa, Armin, and Eren all trying to get the others to stay behind, sometimes subtly, sometimes not so much.

"Oh, this crow is delicious, Eren. I'm going to miss this a lot when you're too busy training to hunt."

"You hurt from too hard work. Soldier is much hard work."

"Maria looks so happy, doesn't she? She loves you so much Eren, what would she do without you?"

"This is from walking into a shelf? Armin you bruise so easily, you should make sure to take care of yourself more. I can 't even imagine what the military would do to you."

"You not come with me. I go alone."

"Eren, Mikasa and Armin tell me you're thinking of doing something very dangerous, and I'm concerned. Carla is out of her mind with worry and as your semi father-figure, it's my duty to talk you out of it."

"You know, you'll have to take orders from people who will treat you like dirt, and if you talk back to them, they'll send you back."

"Eren, please don't do this, please, you're like a son to me. I can't lose you like that."

"I make you deal. If you enough strong to lift me, you come. If not, you do not. It is a good deal. You should take deal."

"You know, you'll miss Maria's first birthday....You don't know what a birthday is?"

Eren fumes. This was not going to plan. Armin and Mikasa were much better at twisting words to guilt him and get him to feel even worse about leaving. They had even told Carla and Hannes. That...wasn't fair. Carla had been calling on him to watch Maria more frequently than ever, and it makes Eren's chest tight to think of leaving the soft little hatchling nuzzled against his chest.

Looking at her, however, he is reminded of how important it is that he does go. He could be a great asset just as much because of his knowledge of Titans as his physical strength and heightened senses. He could help defeat the Titans once and for all.

But still, he wavers in his conviction at every gurgle and cough, at every sticky grip on one of his fingers. Fulfilling his promise is not going to be as easy as he 'd thought.

Levi grips the edge of his desk so hard he can feel each individual grain digging into his palm. His hand shakes with the force of it 'no...

His whole body shakes.

He can 't tell if it 's anger or horror 'or maybe it 's betrayal 'making him tremble like a leaf, but the papers in his hands are shaking so hard he can barely continue reading them. He doesn't need to. It 's all bullshit anyway.

Levi wastes no time storming out of his office, tearing the door open and letting it slam into the wall. He passes by many people on his way, but no one bothers him. He knows most of them have gotten somewhat used to his naturally stern face, but now it's probably apocalyptic. And for good reason. He thinks of the words he just read, made even more putrid because of the thick layer of bureaucracy and lies coating them.

How many years has he worked for this shitstain of a government, and he 's never seen something so awful, so blatantly tyrannical. It should be laughable that the people running this place are more criminal them the

actual

criminals he used to work for. This is no laughing matter.

He throws the door to Erwin's office open, and growls at the young soldier speaking with the Commander to leave. The kid gives a hurried salute and bolts. Levi doesn't have time for the brat, though. He slams the report down on Erwin's desk.

"What the

fuck

is this?"

The look on Erwin 's face says that he expected no less from him, but there was also a tired resignation there. He glances down at the papers. ' 'If I 'm to assume you 've read it, then you know exactly what it is. ' Levi 's glare turns even sharper and Erwin lets out a deep sigh. The man looks worn thin.

It 's probably guilt,

he thinks,

good.

'Levi. You must know that I tried to change their minds. '

Levi scoffs gracelessly. 'Apparently not hard enough. '

'There 's nothing any of us can do except prepare. '

'For a mass culling of the undesirables? ' He sneers

'For reclaiming Wall Maria. '