Work Text:
I’ve decided, I suppose.
It’s hard, knowing that any choice comes with many consequences, good or bad. My old friend has gone, a formerly prime choice for this, but now not Mike will have been ready for this change.
We don’t have time for preliminaries and formalities; all we have is a moment.
It’s all anyone living here will ever have.
But I’ll take it anyway.
The Survey Corps needs to move on. It needs to thrive with good judgment, respect, and faith, all of it from the cadets to its commanding officers, back and forth, give and take.
It should be someone I trust, someone who has worked closely with me, someone who knows me and what I want and what I’ve done to sustain the organization. Someone who’s been with me long enough.
It should be someone that’s not just my friend. It must be someone I trust more deeply than anyone else.
But this isn’t just about trust. Any tactician should know who the enemy is. Anyone willing to defend humanity and its greater good must be able to throw away their own humanity. Morality isn’t part of the equation.
This is all just business.
Even if everyone else says it should be, I wouldn’t choose Levi. He’s still leaning far too much into his past, still too brutal to be anything more than just a robot. Even if he was my closest friend, I can’t choose Mike.
My choice will ring far and wide in the history books, I presume. That is, if the books they’re writing about the Survey Corps are true, not the load of bull that I read as a child...and as an adult.
That was a part of the reasons why my choice is my choice: that they shouldn’t be afraid of the truth, and instead must speak of it. Must let the people hear of it.
I know it seems like an odd choice. But it’s the best I’ve got.
She’s the best I’ve got.
...the next commander will be Hanji Zoe.
You.