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The crispy crackle of flames roars in his ears.
Down the length and across the width of his limbs, twisting, carnivorous flames blast over him. His lungs sizzle into char, worsening his burden to breathe. His eyesight is singeing, eroding into black with each glowing wave of heat pushed against him.
As he hovers in midair—remaining in place only by the hooks sunken into the Colossal Titan’s teeth—he sees all he looked forward to being eaten by the fires of war: his dream of a pulsing sea, a chest binding love for his friends, the breathtaking wonder for what rests beyond a wall-less horizon. It’s all falling away into ash…just like he’s falling.
And it’s in this moment, castaway by one, final steam-wave, his spine shattered into gravel after landing on a tile roof, Armin wishes he was back to those times; he wishes it was just him who was fading away.
Armin shouldn’t be able to see, but this time, he can; Levi is gone and even Eren is eerily silent. Eren stands from his spot next to Armin, walks toward the roof’s edge and his hair isn’t short—it’s long and tied up, the fury of emerald-glinting rage replaced with dead stoicism. A tornado of blue fire erupts from below the roof’s edge, climbs and spins upward until it stretches into the clouds, blossoms branches which reach outward in thin, long limbs. Armin tries to call out but his throat is dried solid, incapable of sound. Eren journeys farther and on legs Armin can’t control, on nerves and muscles which are too burned away to recall how to walk, Armin can’t run after him this time. Eren’s consumed by fire the moment Armin’s blackened teeth can separate and Mikasa who carries her scarf, kneels at his side. She tucks the red wrapping under his head, “I’ll be back” are the words his scarred hearing picks up. Mikasa stands, bolts after him but the tree of fire fades, robs Mikasa her chance to go after Eren.
And now they’re here. It took so much, but they’re finally here.
It’s here too.
A walking tsunami of red-muscles and steam quakes the Earth to its core, approaches them. Armin’s eyes have dried from how wide they’ve become, at what he watches.
Above the stampede of death is a flying, spinning razor-blade—like he was, it’s engulfed in flames. He remembers the sharp-edged clog in his chest, the strain to just breathe—his Commander must be suffering through the same and while fighting. Hange flies for them to buy time, soars from titan to titan like a comet one wishes upon for a miracle to come true. To the last day, Hange promised them a chance, a solution when uncertainty loomed. He knows, knows what it’s like to suffer a skin-liquifying inferno and all he can do is watch.
Armin isn’t sure if he is crying or if he can cry anymore; all he is certain of is he feels right now what Hange feels—the borders of his eyes smolder, warmth hurts skin which was once killed by fire. He can’t breathe.
“Armin.”
The youngest Commander to date blinks. When his neck swivels to his right, Mikasa stands at his side, eyeing him intently. She’s just collapsed to her hands and knees over not reaching Eren, of being denied just like he was, and she’s so visibly concerned about him. The lead brick of how pathetic he feels drops Armin’s gut.
“Armin, are you—?”
“I’m fine,” he brushes off her worry with the most level tone he can muster. His reassurance sounds believable…he hopes, “I’m just thinking of what else we may have missed. Something we may have missed…anything which can be useful.”
“Think of it fast,” Levi chimes in, “It’s a split second between life and death out there—we need every advantage we can get.”
Vision blurred by the past 24 hours clears. Armin’s focus jumps to Reiner—he grips the handle dangling from the plane’s ceiling, his jaw filled with tension but expression determined. Pieck is as nervous as Jean and Connie. Mikasa…what she’s feeling also claws at his mind and innards—there’s no break from it either.
Hange isn’t here anymore—he’s responsible for whatever happens next, whatever happens to them.
Like Levi said—it’s a split second. Mikasa and Levi yell a warning to Onyankopon—Armin almost loses his lunch from how quick they tailspin from the hailstorm thrown at them. There’s no more time left, no more space for hesitation. Forcing steel around his voice, Armin shouts out his orders, soaks in the faces of the soldiers staring back into him—this group has accepted they might die with him should they fail. They nod in unison, understanding.
With damp hands, Armin slides open the doorway of the airplane, narrows his eyes at what’s down below.
The dome of a ribcage and long, swaying arms leads Eren’s Titan forward and surrounded by him is this heat...that unbearable dry scrape against his skin and innards, of flames waiting to erupt. Though there is no other chance but now. He has to return again, to smoke and fire and Colossal Titans, just like four years ago. Though who will emerge victorious this time…
Armin’s gut twists two times over, his throat so closed, air hardly passes through. His grits his teeth, puts his faith in their plan.
He falls.
The wind dries Armin’s open eyes, whips against his cheeks, but he’s found he doesn’t need to try so hard to raise his voice. It was lost in the depths of his stomach for a time, trapped in the back of his brain which squirmed and demanded for an answer. All these memories he has, of him and Mikasa together, of a wish to keep the tether between them so strong and unscarred, it remains even after he is six feet beneath the ground. The passion Armin has found resonates in his vocal cords.
“Eren!!”