Chapter Text
Levi sipped on his tea. Being 'Humanity's Strongest' and all, he had experienced many of his comrades' downfalls. He was used to this, so the death of Rishin Teru didn't have as much of an impact on him as it perhaps had on some of the others, for instance: Hange, Sasha, Jean and Connie. Levi had noticed that Teru had spent most of his time with Kirstein, so he assumed that it must have been especially hard on the horse-faced cadet.
Once he was finished with his tea, Levi cleaned his cup and went down to the barracks to see Jean. He knocked on his dorm door.
"Kirstein, we need to talk," he called. "Meet me in the Mess Hall in five."
Six minutes had already passed and Levi still sat alone in the hall. At last, he heard the door creak open, revealing a young man behind it.
"What took you so long?" grumbled Levi as Jean sat down across from him at the table. "Don't bother answering that. Moving on, about Teru..."
Jean took a seat and put his head in his hands, leaning his elbows on the table. He sighed. "What about him, Captain?"
"I'm considering leading a rescue mission to locate him," the Captain informed him. "But I need to ask you this first. Is it realistic that he could still be alive?"
Jean shook his head. "I don't know to be honest, Captain. I wasn't there when it happened but from what I was told, he was crushed by a titan's hand. I suppose the blood that was assumed to be Rishin's when he was, erm... killed could have actually been the titan's? If the other scouts weren't close enough to distinguish between the two... it could be possible that he slashed at the titan's hand to free himself before getting killed, but I'm not sure. If you were in that situation, do you think that you would be able to survive?"
Levi closed his eyes briefly, then opened them again. "Possibly. And you're asking why?"
"His strength is almost equal to yours, is it not?" Jean pointed out. "A 'possibly' as an answer is not a definite 'no.' I'd say there's still a chance based off of that then."
Levi nodded his head and looked down at his paperwork, away from Jean. "You're dismissed."
- - -
"Attention, soldiers!" Erwin called as everyone was finishing up their dinner portions. "Captain Levi has an announcement to make."
Levi stood up from where he was seated and looked around the room. "I've already spoken about this to one of my squad members, but I will be leading a rescue mission outside the walls in search of Teru. Jaeger, Arlert, Ackerman, Braus, Springer and Kirstein... you'll be joining the expedition under my command, along with Hange and their squad."
He nodded to Hange. "We'll be leaving as soon as the sun rises tomorrow morning, so get some sleep, but not until after our meeting tonight to discuss formations and shit."
Erwin took over the spotlight from there. Levi looked towards his squad members. His eyes landed on Sasha and he raised an eyebrow at her in curiosity. Did she even listen to a word he had said? Her face was stuffed with potato and she didn't seem to have a care in the world for the speech he had given. Levi didn't think he would ever be able to understand her and the way she functioned.
Finally, she looked up at the captain and he mouthed to her: "Meeting after, my office," hoping she got the message. If she didn't end up showing her face to the meeting, Levi had made a mental note to put her on Mess Hall cleaning duty for a week and to exclude her from the rescue mission.
So much had been lost and so much had been destroyed. Loss was almost the only thing that Levi remembered in his life. He had lost his two closest friends because of Erwin and the stupid document. He had lost his entire squad to the Female Titan. He had also lost his mother at a very young age due to harsh living conditions of the Underground. Was there really a point to his life and all this fighting anymore? Levi wasn't sure now, he was never sure about anything. He didn't know why he kept on going.
Levi didn't realize that his eyes had closed and that his head was resting in his hands until he heard Hange gently calling his name.
"Levi..." they said. "Levi? You there?"
Levi opened his eyes to find Hange standing over him from behind his chair with their hands waving in front of his eyes. He noticed as well that the rest of the soldiers were staring at him, including Erwin who was no longer speaking to the soldiers.
Levi faced the commander and raised an eyebrow. "You done with your speech already?" he asked Erwin just loud enough that him and Hange could hear.
"I have been for a few minutes," Erwin said. "You said something about a meeting of some sort?"
The captain nodded to the commander. "Right, of course. Tell my squad and Hange's to meet me in my office once they've cleaned up. Hange and I will start strategizing a bit in advance."
He stood up and looked at Hange. "Let's go."
They walked down the long hallways side by side, not knowing what to say. Levi was surprised that Hange wasn't coming up with a conversation starter for once, but of course didn't show that with his facial expression, keeping it stoic.
"Hange," he said to them.
Hange looked over at Levi and tilted their head to the side in curiosity.
"You always seem to be in such high spirits. What keeps you so happy, hm?" he asked with his usual monotone voice.
They hesitated. "Where is this coming from?"
"Never mind, doesn't matter," he said, turning away and ending the conversation abruptly.
They had arrived at Levi's office. He unlocked the door and let them both in. He sat down at his desk and took out a few blank sheets of paper with a pen.
"What are we thinking?" Hange asked as they closed the door behind them, taking a seat near Levi's.
Levi began, "I'm not entirely sure. He would most likely be in Wall Rose, would he not? I'm assuming he's out of supplies. Teru probably kept at least a sword for hunting though, if he was thinking logically. There's a high chance that he doesn't have enough gas to get over the wall."
Hange nodded. "That makes sense. Hopefully he's stayed out of range of the Armoured and Colossal Titans."
Levi wrote a few words down then set his pen on the desk. He pulled out a map of the walls and spread it out for Hange to see. He pointed at Stohess District's outer gate.
"We should start here," he told them.
There was a knock on Levi's door.
"You can let yourselves in," Hange called.
Levi pinched their arm lightly. "It's my office, idiot."
"So what, you wanted them to stand outside your door 'til the mission starts?" Hange asked sarcastically. "Is this some new training exercise to test their patience?"
Levi stood up to address the soldiers once they were all in, completely ignoring the mad scientist. "I've already mentioned that we're leaving tomorrow morning. Here's the plan..."
He got Hange to hold up the map for him. "Our expedition tomorrow will be lead around the wall surrounding Stohess. There is more of a chance that he'll be near the gate, but we'll still search all around the district nonetheless."
"Questions?" Hange asked enthusiastically with a crazy smile on their face.
Armin's hand went up and Levi nodded at him. "Yeah?"
"Captain, with all that's been going on with the Armoured and Colossal, shouldn't we split up in our two squads in order to be more efficient?" he asked. "If it takes too much time and we're out there when it's dark, we could possibly have some casualties."
"Titans don't move during the night," Levi told him. "They're significantly weaker when they lack sunlight. I specifically chose tomorrow since it's expected to be cloudy, according to our weather predictions. I doubt much moonlight will be shining through when it gets darker. We'll be safer together as one group anyways, even if there happens to miraculously be some moonlight."
Hange gave Armin a reassuring look. "According to my research, that all sounds accurate."
"Springer, I'm giving you the responsibility of filling Braus on the parts that she didn't bother to take in at dinner," Levi told him. "You're all dismissed if there are no more questions."
Erwin, who was standing by the room's door, gave an approving nod of his head. "I expect you all to be back by the end of the day tomorrow... along with our missing soldier."
The cadets filed out one by one. All were gone except Levi, Hange, Erwin and Jaeger.
"The hell are you still doing here, Jaeger?" Levi asked impatiently.
"Well sir, you see..." the teenager replied as he pulled a notebook out of his pocket. "Right before he sacrificed himself, or maybe not sacrificed, Rishin gave me this. It has a bunch of interesting stuff in it actually. Fighting techniques, formations I've never seen before as well. I think he made them up himself? I thought you should see it. I copied it down for myself. I wanted to try some of the moves out for myself."
"And you didn't think of telling this to us earlier, you damn idiot?" Levi asked angrily as he snatched the book out of the titan shifter's hands. "If that's all you have to say, get out."
Eren quickly followed his friends out the door. Erwin gave Levi an unsatisfied look.
"Watch yourself," the commander said.
The three higher-ups spent the next few hours into the night studying the journal's content. When it struck midnight, they called it a day and Hange and Erwin left Levi alone in his office. Levi didn't sleep that night, not that it was out of the norm for him to get no shuteye. He took a book off of the shelf, and even though he didn't know how to read, he knew it was about birds and he knew it was once Isabelle's. A friend gone too soon to fly amongst said creatures.