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She’s broken and bruised, but Mikasa still rises like all those times before. She walks among fallen friends and comrades, her feet treading across the dusty, shattered streets that she had once walked as a child. Dust and ash fill her lungs with every ragged breath she takes, but Mikasa chokes it down as she marches on. The only sounds that can be heard across the torn-up city are the distant blazing of burning buildings and the heavy clomp of Mikasa’s boots as she drags herself across the street. This whole scene looks just like a snapshot of her past, except this time she is the one responsible for the destruction and carnage, and this time, instead of running away, she has come to end it once and for all.
She stands like an ant among giants, the Wall Titans towering above her like silent columns as they face their master. Mikasa had seen them earlier walking towards the Founder, their mindless nature making them oblivious to the destruction they created with every step they took. They crushed buildings and innocent civilians underfoot, the dried blood of corpses staining the soles of their feet.
Monsters , Mikasa had thought reflexively even though she knows better than to blame them for their actions. It’s not their fault that they can’t control themselves. A long time ago they must have been just like her, someone with dreams and people to love. They were just dealt a bad hand of fate. In another time or place, Mikasa could have been just like them. It’s a thought she’s had many times and it still makes her shudder. No, if Mikasa wants to blame anyone, she should blame their master.
Unlike the Titans, Mikasa takes small steps, careful not to tread on even a single insect as she makes her way slowly towards the Founder. Mikasa is not sure what the Founder is meant to look like, if it had always manifested itself in the same monstrous form that appears in front of her now or if it has evolved with each Titan of Ymir that it acquired. It looks nothing at all like the Titans that she was familiar with. While the Titans she had seen before have all resembled a human, the Founding Titan is a ghastly skeleton of an ancient creature that stretches for miles and miles, making the Colossal Titan look miniscule in comparison. From this distance, Mikasa has no hope of finding the nape. All she can see is the back of the Titan, spikes protruding from its endless spine and steam erupting from its skeleton.
Mikasa discards her guns, letting them clatter to the ground. Even if they were still filled with bullets, they would stand no chance against the Titan. She reaches for her blades instead, discarding her dull ones for new ones. Wordlessly, she walks past the Wall Titans, not bothering to raise her weapon against them. They pay no attention to her as she passes by, and Mikasa feels no need to create more unnecessary casualties. Like them, her focus is solely on the Founding Titan.
The Founding Titan lifts its head, a skull with an elongated snout like that of a reptile, and lets out a guttural shriek that shatters the sky and shakes the ground. The sound is so powerful that the surviving buildings that had been standing crumble, leaving a pile of rubble where they once stood. The cry seems to wake the Wall Titans from their temporary stupor because they too lift their heads and emit similar cries albeit far quieter and less earth-shattering than their predecessor. Mikasa does not understand the language - she’s unsure if it’s spoken in a tongue at all - but the howls send shivers down her spine all the same.
She fights the urge to shout Eren’s name, desperate to call out to him, the only one who was ever sure of his purpose in this madness. Even if she were to say his name, Mikasa doubts that he would be able to hear her from where he stands, trapped in the prison he’s built himself.
The truth is, she was never supposed to be here. Mikasa has never wanted to be the hero. All she’s ever wanted was to be the bystander who somehow miraculously managed to survive despite the adversity of the world. She would have been happy if she never had to wield a blade in her life or save a life. That wasn’t the life she desired. It’s just the life she ended up following by chance. The truth is, Eren is supposed to be the one standing where she is. He should be the one with the blade in his hand, staring fearlessly up at the Founding Titan that is threatening to destroy the entire world beyond the ocean. He is the one who has always been a hero, sacrificing everything so that others might taste the freedom that he believed was everyone’s right. He wasn’t supposed to be the monster that Mikasa was meant to defeat.
But even now as Mikasa looks up at Eren’s ghastly form, she can’t see him as the villain. He’s still her hero - he’s always her hero - but he’s in a story that Mikasa no longer recognizes. It doesn’t matter that she understands the reasons for his actions or that he’s doing this for her and the Eldians of Paradis so that they no longer have to live as demons but as human beings. No reason can justify the amount of death and destruction that Eren is about to unleash upon the world, and so Mikasa finds herself raising her blade against the only hero she’s ever known.
Eren has always been Mikasa’s hero.
That fateful day when Mikasa had lost her parents, she had not expected anyone to come save her. She only had her parents, but they had been taken away from her so cruelly, their lives bleeding out of their fatal wounds while Mikasa could only stare in shock as her parents’ murderers dragged her away. Even if people were to discover her parents’ corpses, it would be too late to save them just as it would be too late to save Mikasa.
She heard them talking about her, their deep, gravelly voices grating against her eardrums. Mikasa closed her eyes and tried to drown out their conversation with the hopeless thought that someone might come to save her, but it was useless. She choked back sobs as they spoke about how much they could sell her for - a half-breed that they might be able to pass off as a full-blooded exotic Asian if the buyer were ignorant enough. They lamented the loss of Mikasa’s mother, although their reason for grief was different from Mikasa’s. It was more that they regretted that their profit would be lower because a corpse was worth nothing no matter how pretty it was. They said that they’ll just have to do with the little girl, and one of the wicked men leaned over to lift up Mikasa’s chin with a dirtied hand.
Mikasa's face was lifted against her will, but she kept her eyes down, not wanting to see the man’s sneer. She trembled at the touch of the man’s callused hands, shuddering violently when she realized that his hands were still stained with blood. Her startled movement amused the man, who threw his head back in raucous laughter, his face still close enough for Mikasa to smell his sour breath.
She didn’t remember the words he spoke to her then, but Mikasa remembered his voice was lower, softer. Timidly, she looked at him, wondering if he was taking pity on her after seeing how frightened she was, but the smile on his face was cruel and she realized then that he was simply playing with her like a cat plays with its food. She stared at him, frozen, and he snapped at her suddenly, snarling like an animal, and she jolted backwards, her head knocking so hard against the cabin wall that her vision went black for a moment.
As the man roared with a laugh that sounded like the barking of a rabid coyote, his companion snapped at him, telling him to leave the young girl alone. His words were not spoken out of pity or kindness. He made it clear that the child would be worth more if she wasn't scared stiff and half-driven mad. If she were to be traumatized, then it would be better to have her turn into a vegetable after they’ve traded her for money.
She was left alone after that, watching as the shadows in the room stretched across the room and migrated from one wall to the other until they blended in with the darkness. The shadows were replaced with new ones later in the night, shadows that flickered against the light of the burning candle that one of Mikasa’s captors lit. Mikasa watched as one of her kidnappers began to nod off while the other sat in a wooden chair across from her, driving his dagger into the table and carving mindless lines into it to cure his boredom.
Mikasa decided then that she would die. It wasn’t as if she had a choice other than to accept her fate. Against these men, she was a powerless child. How her death would come to be was beyond her. Perhaps it would be at the hands of these villains, their hands twisted around her neck as they choked the life out of her, or maybe it would be at the hands of another cruel stranger, somebody she has not met yet. However she died, she would be alone and helpless, that much she was sure of.
Knock, knock. The sudden rap at the door startled Mikasa and she looked immediately at the door, eyes wide. It was too much to hope that it was her saviour waiting behind the door, and yet her lips began to part, ready to cry out for help as soon as the door opened. One of her kidnappers, the one sitting across from her, noticed her half-open mouth and reached for her, grabbing her by her hair and clamping his hand over her mouth before she could even cry out in pain. He kicked the other man awake, nodding at the door as his partner groaned and stumbled to stand.
There was another knock at the door and the man stood up, one hand hovering above the dagger tucked into his belt. He waited for a moment, listening carefully for any sound on the other side. As he did so, Mikasa held her breath, also listening, but there was nothing to be heard. Finally, the man cracked open the door, careful not to open it too far. As his eyes settled on the unexpected visitor, Mikasa could see the man visibly relax.
“You’re a bit young to be out here all on your own,” the man said, his voice pleasant. He leaned down a little bit to talk to the person on the other side. “And it’s so late too. Shouldn’t you be with your parents?”
“I was with them a little while ago, but I must have wandered off too far,” the person responded. Mikasa was so surprised at how young it sounded. It had to be a boy, one that had gotten lost late at night while he was playing in the woods. Mikasa wondered if he could detect the danger in the cabins, if there was a chance the boy would lean a little bit too far and see Mikasa tied up. Would he be able to run away if he saw her? Would he be smart enough to warn somebody and have someone come save her? But he must have not sensed anything because the boy continued to speak to the man easily, saying, “This was the first cabin I came across and I was wondering if you could help me.”
The man paused, unsure of what to do, before replying. “Well, why don’t you just tell me where your home is and I might be able to point you in the right direction.”
“Thanks, sir. I don’t think I have anything to repay you, although my parents might when we get back home,” the boy said. There was the sound of shuffling as if he was trying to search from something in his trouser pockets.
“Oh, no need to thank me,” the man told the boy, although he sounds more irritated than humble. He moved forward, attempting to slip out the door without exposing the inside of the cabin. “I’m just happy to help -”
An eerie silence followed the man’s words, and Mikasa wondered why the man was frozen in such an unnatural way. A few beats passed and the boy finally pulled the dagger from the man’s chest. Blood dripped onto the floor, staining the wooden slabs. The man crumpled onto the floor like a rag doll, and a boy stood there in the doorway, a bloody knife clenched in his fists.
“Fucking hell,” Mikasa’s captor cursed. He threw her to the floor, abandoning his dagger for the axe that sat nearby. The man is gargantuan, a giant compared to the young boy, but the boy didn’t hesitate as he charged at the man. Even as the man swung at the boy, the child managed to avoid the man’s blade and dug the knife into the man’s shoulder. Even after the man fell to the ground, the boy continued to stab at the man, pulling the knife out of the man’s body only to plunge it back into the man’s torso.
Mikasa sat in stunned silence as the boy stood up. He was covered in blood and breathing heavily, but he was otherwise unharmed. He had to be about her age, and yet he seemed to be nothing like the powerless child she was. He walked up to her kneeling down to untie the rope that bound her.
“I’m Eren,” he told her as he loosened the ropes. He untangled the ropes, letting them fall to the floor. “I’m Dr. Jaeger’s son. We were supposed to meet today.”
Mikasa remembered. Grisha Jaeger, the doctor that often met with her mother to discuss Mikasa’s unborn sibling. She vaguely recalled her mother telling her that the doctor had a son around her age. She had almost forgotten that the doctor was supposed to come at all. Did that mean that Dr. Jaeger had come by her house and seen the bodies of her parents? Did he know what had happened to her? Did he know that men had come to capture her and planned on selling her away?
The men, Mikasa realized. There were three. Two had stayed to watch her while one had run off to get supplies.
Panicked, she looked at Eren, grabbing him by the wrist. “There’s another man,” Mikasa said, her voice weak.
“What?” Eren said, confused.
“Another man,” Mikasa gasped. She didn’t know whether to run or wait for help. Tears began to sting her eyes in her panic. “There were three men.”
Eren began to put the pieces together, looking around the cabin to make sure that the missing man wasn’t lurking around in a corner. He nodded and gestured to Mikasa to follow him. “Come on, let’s get out of here while we still can.” He stepped carefully over the body of one of Mikasa’s captors and looked back at her. When he saw that she wasn’t following, he waved his hand again, urging her to come with him. “Come on!”
It was like slow motion seeing the third man emerge from the open door, creeping out of the darkness like the monster he was. He was carrying supplies with him, his pack heavy, but he dropped it with a huge clatter as he lunged for the boy in front of him. Eren didn’t realize what was happening until the man’s hands were around his neck, squeezing him until he could hardly breathe. While Mikasa could only stand and stare in shock, Eren struggled against the man’s grip, kicking and grasping at the hands around his throat.
“Fight!” the boy gasped, looking at Mikasa. His hands clutched at the hands around his neck. “If you want to live, fight!”
It was if those words awakened her, electrifying her and giving her life. All this time, Mikasa had been too afraid to even breathe because she had believed there was no one to save her, but here was this boy who was ready to put down his life for her. He had saved her life once just by appearing at the door, he had saved her life twice by killing her captors, and now he would save her life again by giving her the strength she needed to free herself.
Mikasa grabbed the dagger that Eren had left on the ground and ran towards the last man, the final barricade between her and her freedom, and plunged the blade into the man’s chest right into his heart.
Eren fell to the floor with a heavy thud , curling onto the floor as his hands moved up to rub at his throat. Mikasa, however, stayed where she was, staring at the man that swayed in front of her. Her hands hovered around the knife handle. She looked up at the man who had captured her, had helped to kill her parents, and she watched as his eyes grew dark and glassy. Finally, she pulled the knife from his chest and stepped aside as he fell at her feet.
“You saved me,” Eren gasped, still lying on the floor with his hands massaging his neck. “Thank you.”
“No, thank you,” Mikasa said softly. She walked over to him, offering him a hand to pull him up. You saved me first.
That night, he wrapped a muffler around her neck and led her home. It was then that Mikasa knew he would always be her hero.
Eren was her hero even after she came to know his childish side and she discovered his dislike of chores, how he spent more time daydreaming than helping out in the house, and how he was never as invincible as she thought he was. He fought bullies twice his size even though there was no way he would ever win, but Mikasa admired his fearless righteousness and so she fought his battles with him, lending him her strength because he was the one who gave her strength to begin with. He was the one who stitched her world together right as it was being torn apart and he was the one who kept it together when it began to rip at the seams again.
When Wall Maria fell and everything was taken away from them, Mikasa expected Eren to crumble just like she did when he first found her. She was ready to be the one to take care of him, to put him back together the way he did for her when they met, but he didn’t need her to. He saw their future torn down in front of them and he decided to forge them a new one even if it meant signing his life away the moment he was old enough to enlist in the military.
It wasn’t something that Mikasa could understand, sacrificing herself for the sake of other people. She would never be as righteous and selfless as Eren was, but she followed him anyway because she knew she could never convince him. Even if she pleaded or cried with him, Eren would never budge. He was doing this for the greater good - a purpose bigger than him or her or they could ever be - and she couldn’t hate him for that. Instead, she stayed by his side, enlisting beside him even though it was far from the life she had dreamed for them.
Training was grueling, but it was far more painful for Eren who didn’t exhibit the natural athletic ability that Mikasa did. If she practiced for an hour, Eren practiced twice as much in order to perform half as well and he oftentimes spent his extra time mastering skills instead of socializing with others. She would have told him to relax more, try less, but the fear that only she would enter the top ten and leave him behind forced her into silence and she watched as Eren pushed himself every day to surpass their classmates.
What Eren lacked in physical prowess, he made up with sheer willpower and determination. When others grew tired and began to give up, Eren trained harder, nearly collapsing from exhaustion by the time he retreated for the night. He would have worked himself to death if he didn’t have a mission to complete. After all of his hard work, Eren managed to place within the top ten in their class and Mikasa rejoiced internally only to remember that he would never follow her to the Military Police. She only had to ask him once if he could reconsider his choice, but his dismissive glance at her suggestion told her that he would never budge and so she followed him even though she believed it would be the death of them.
Her worst fears were proven true the night of the graduation. With a clap of lightning, the Walls outside of Trost District collapsed and Mikasa found herself dragged away from Eren, forced to defend the civilians while Eren and the rest of her classmates were ordered to the front lines. Her position offered her more safety than the rest of her classmates. She should have been grateful, but her mind kept wandering to Eren and she found herself struggling not to rush the civilians forward as they tried to make their escape. Even as the numbers of the civilians dwindled, Mikasa felt herself becoming antsy, her grip tightening around the handle of the blade. As soon as the last civilian went through the gate, she fled, ignoring the cries of her team leader to stay put.
She knew what had happened even before she reached Armin, and yet she approached him with the hope that she might be wrong. “What happened?” she asked, but she regretted the words as soon as they slipped out of her mouth.
“D-dead. Th-they’re all d-dead,” Armin whispered, trembling as Connie wrapped an arm around him. “Eren was eaten b-because of m-me. He s-s-sacrificed himself … f-for me...”
Mikasa didn’t know why she felt so shocked when Eren’s death was inevitable from the start. From the beginning, he was a hero and he stayed a hero until the very end. Tears of anger dripped down Mikasa’s chin, burning across her skin, although she didn’t know why. There was nobody to blame, not even Eren for choosing such a reckless path. He knew that this was a possibility, that he might die, and he chose it anyway. He valued the possibility of freedom over his own life. That was just his nature.
She gave up living for the second time then, believing it was no use if Eren wasn’t by her side. Without any thought, she flew through the air, slaying every giant that stood in her way. If she was going down, she would take down as many monsters as she could with her. It was as close to revenge as she could get. Mikasa ignored the cries of her comrades behind her, disregarding their shouts that warned her of her rapidly depleting fuel. She ran out of gas in midair, falling from the sky as if in freefall. She found the reason for her demise as she fell down - a thirteen-meter titan that looked vaguely human but its facial features were far too distorted. Looking up, she expected to be frightened, the fear of death seizing her the way it seized others that had gone before her. As the Titan reached for her, Mikasa began to accept her fate until a bolt of lightning ran through her body and familiar words echoed in her mind.
Fight . They were words spoken to her so long ago she had almost forgotten. If you want to live, fight! They were the same words that Eren had spoken to her all those years ago, words that gave her the strength to live and she had almost forgotten them so carelessly. How could she give her life up so carelessly when Eren had given his life so that others would not just simply survive, but thrive.
Fingers began to close around her, but Mikasa still reached for the blade that was just within her reach. Just when she believed she was done for, another Titan appeared, its hand outstretched as if to claim her as his meal. The new Titan lifted its other hand into a fist, pulling it back as the thirteen-meter stared at it with a slackened jaw. There was something familiar in the way the new Titan moved, how it threw its fist in a punch that sent the other Titan flying and how it turned to face the other Titans that had begun to circle it. Before she could think about it any further, she was whisked away by Connie and Armin. When they later learned that that same Titan was Eren, somehow Mikasa was not surprised. Only Eren would find a way to come back to life and finish the impossible goal he had set for himself.
Eren’s resurrection was a blessing and a curse. For every danger he put himself through, Mikasa cried a hundred tears until she was sure she could fill an ocean with all the tears she shed. She cried the night of their first expedition, she cried the night Eren had been kidnapped during the uprising, and she cried the night the Scouting Legion was decimated by the Beast Titan and its comrades. Eren saw all of those tears and although he comforted her, he did nothing to stop them from falling. Even if he was the reason for her tears, it couldn’t be helped. Eren was destined to be a hero even if it hurt her in the end.
She pulled through it by telling herself it would be over soon. There would be a day where Eren was satisfied with the work he had done and the sacrifices he had made. She hoped, a little too foolishly, that it was the day the Scouts had managed to save Trost District. She thought Eren’s newfound powers would somehow earn him special treatment, but they only encouraged the Scouting Legion to thrust Eren into more danger, and Eren eagerly accepted every challenge they gave him because it meant he would be closer to obtaining the freedom he had always wanted. Even worse, the more dangerous their obstacle, the more Eren seemed to thrive, growing even more determined even though everyone around them only grew more desperate. After the defeat of the Female Titan, Mikasa thought they might have the chance to rest, content that the threats around them had subsided even if only for a little bit, but their next mission called them and Eren leapt forward not even a second after the orders had left the Commander’s mouth. They fought through unexplained Titan resurgences within the Walls, an uprising, and a battle that wiped out almost the entire Scouting Legion, and still, Mikasa saw a fire burning in Eren’s eyes that blazed just as fiercely the night she met him.
They reached the ocean when they were nineteen. It was further than she thought any of them would ever get, but if anyone could make it, it was Eren. He had always said he wanted to see the ocean, feel the sand underneath his feet, taste the saltwater on his tongue. And yet even as they looked out into the ocean, Eren looked deeply unsatisfied. While their companions looked at the sea, marveling at the expanse of water before them, Eren looked even further, searching for something. It was then that Mikasa felt her heart drop and she realized that Eren would always be looking for something to fight for even if everyone he loved was safe beside him. It wasn’t because he craved the attention or that he loved the thrill of battle. He just knew that they deserved more than the lives they knew right now. He knew they deserved everything the world had to offer, and he would never be satisfied until he gave it to them or died trying.
Mikasa grasped for Eren’s hand, intertwining her fingers with his and giving it a quick squeeze. It’s fine, she wanted to tell him. We’re here. You can stop now.
Eren’s hand didn’t tighten around hers, but he did turn to Mikasa. He smiled at her, but his eyes were far away and Mikasa knew she would never be able to reach him.
Eren was her hero then, and he’s still her hero now even as the world threatens to collapse underneath his feet. But Eren is a hero in a story with an ending Mikasa doesn’t want to be a part of. She could wait for another to come and end this nightmare, another white knight who could give this tale the happy conclusion that Mikasa had always wistfully dreamed of, but there are no more heroes. Mikasa is the only one left. Ten years ago, being alone in such a situation would have petrified her, but she’s no longer the helpless child she was the night Eren had saved her. She was older now with a blade in her hand and the realization that she was the only one who could save herself.
She reaches the head of the Titan, wanting one last look at Eren before she says goodbye. As she rises into the sky, her blade raised high as Mikasa aimed for the nape of the Titan’s neck, she sees Eren’s eyes - a pitch-black abyss. When the green fire in his eyes burned to ash, Mikasa doesn’t know, but it must have been long ago. The Eren she knew is here no longer, and yet she’s still filled with remorse as she slashes the fatal blow across his neck. She doesn’t look back. She already knows what will happen next.
There’s the thud of the Titan’s carcass as it falls to the ground. Mikasa feels the heat against her back as the body begins to evaporate. She closes her eyes, listening to the steam rise, and it almost sounds like a sigh of release.