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Red. Red light and bursts of sea spray and the groaning of metal joints and the jolt as the hydraulics attached to their suits fought in vain against the blow of the Kaiju’s tail and the snapping of jaws. Christa’s limbs fought to maintain control, to synchronize her movements with Ymir’s and strike back. Suddenly a vibration rippled through the water—the Jeager lost its balance and fell to the ocean floor, kicking up whorls of murky green that made it even harder for her to get her bearings. Jets of sea water shot through the seams, speckling her helmet with droplets.
And all at once the buffeting around them stopped. Christa’s dazed senses could only make out an explosion of froth and a pair of leathery backs as their assailants shot through the deep. But her relief was short-lived. Her stomach fell as the Kaiju joined their partner in assaulting the other Jeager by the chasm.
It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.
They had gone into this mission with a grim resolve, backed by the supposedly foolproof powers of mathematics, and a final, rousing speech by Commander Irvin: the final four pilots left in the Jeager program who were still capable of running one last mission. The Kaiju assault on Hong Kong had incapacitated their forces right before what could be the most crucial moment in human history. But luck had at least left them with enough pilots to man the two Jeagers, Rose and Sina, needed to carry out their final plan, their last hope: to plant a bomb in the underwater gateway between the Kaiju world and the human one.
Commander Irvin had breathed a sigh of relief when somehow, Corporal Levi ended up being adequately drift-compatible with Eren. The hotheaded recruit’s passion and rage had proved to be both a blessing and a curse in the past: few were able to initiate a neural handshake with him, and even if that went smoothly, sorting through his feverish memories and running a mission with him became another dilemma entirely. He would rather have been the one piloting the Rose with Levi, but the injury to his arm made it impossible. Irvin hoped that Eren’s respect for the Corporal and the latter’s experience on the battlefield would override any reckless actions, but it wasn’t as if there was any other choice at this point.
And the other pair, Christa and Ymir, a team with one of the strongest connections among the new recruits, a connection that was obvious even when they weren’t in the cockpit of a Jeager.
Why, then, had the Commander entrusted the bomb to a pair of pilots who had never drifted together, one half of which was prone to impulsive outbursts?
Irvin could read Ymir’s eyes when Christa first volunteered to be a pilot. And what he saw had made him uneasy.
True, these two had something special, a connection that translated to exemplary skill and cohesion on the battlefield.
But, the Commander thought, this devotion and loyalty between them might prove to be stronger than fear of humanity’s moral judgement, the chains of obligation to their species, the overarching goal of saving mankind.
There was no time for doubts. He could only trust in his soldiers now, and put all of humanity’s power into this one last onslaught.
The operation went smoothly at first. The mechanical giants progressed slowly but surely towards the fault line. Even when the dots of red indicating a Kaiju approach appeared on the radar, Rose was close enough to the chasm to drop the bomb, with Sina acting as backup.
Until Hanji and Armin scrambled into mission control, soaked in rain with blood running down their chins, screaming that the plan wouldn’t work. The portal would only let something with the Kaiju’s genetic code to pass through, or the bomb would deflect and backfire on them. The bomb would need to enter the portal together with a Kaiju.
Then the Category V Kaiju emerged.
Christa willed her right leg to rise, but felt the tug of resistance from her other half, the copilot with whom was sharing her mind. Ymir’s fingers furiously flipped switches, scrambled to slam the right buttons on the control panel as their bodies swung in the skeleton of the Jeager that collapsed around them. Christa’s eyes widened and she grabbed Ymir’s wrist as she realized her partner’s intentions.
“Ymir, what are you doing, stop it!”
Ymir shook her off. “They’re done for and you know that! Were you thinking that you would save them? That you’d die in the line of duty for your comrades? That everyone would mourn for Christa the noble, devoted warrior? You coward: you just want to shirk responsibility and die knowing that everyone thought well of you.”
“I wasn’t—”
“Don’t even bother pretending, our minds are connected. I know what else you’re thinking: and I won’t let you do it.”
“It’s the only way—”
“Sina, Sina can you hear me, this is Rose.” Corporal Levi’s voice crackled through waterlogged speakers.
“Yes sir,” Christa struggled to gain her balance as one arm pushed Ymir away from the control panel and the other strained towards the mike.
“Listen carefully, we don’t have much time. Rose is finished. We will hold them off for five minutes, then we’ll use this bomb to clear the way—”
“Hey, you two!” a harsh young male voice took over, “Sina is a walking nuclear reactor, you can collapse the portal! Use the corpse of these Kaiju to get through once we’re done with them!”
Ymir smirked and leaned over to the mike. “One step ahead of you Eren, Christa and I have already discussed that option…and it’s not really to our liking.”
“What?! What the hell are you—“
Levi cut off Eren’s indignant scream. “Soldiers, I won’t force you into anything. But there’s no time: make a choice and don’t regret it.”
“I don’t. Goodbye Corporal.” Ymir switched off the speakers. Christa grabbed her hand.
“Ymir, we won’t get a chance like this again. We have to do it,” she implored.
Ymir glared her way coldly. She turned towards the chasm, where the Kaiju ravaged the shell of the Rose, sheets of metal crumbling off into the ocean. “I don’t feel any obligation towards Eren or Corporal Levi. I don’t have to carry out someone else’s dying wishes. To you this might be a chance to save mankind. But to me this is buying us time. While the Kaiju are preoccupied I can eject both of us out of here.”
“We can still make it to the chasm, then we’ll set the Jeager to self-destruct and escape, together! Just trust me!”
“Trust you? How do you know that there’s enough time? Were you thinking that you’d kindly save me, your partner, before you sacrificed yourself? Do you think I care about my own life if you’re not a part of it anymore?”
“Don’t be selfish Ymir, we can end this!”
Ymir hesitated. “Yes, I’m selfish. And because I’m that way, because I’m selfish and greedy, I can’t imagine doing any lofty favors for mankind if I can’t be satisfied right away.” She turned to Christa. “But you, you’re always thinking of the long-term. Christa the martyr! Blows herself up in the belly of the beast with a nuclear reactor and saves the human race!”
“Stop!”
“But I won’t let you do that; none of that matters! None of it matters if I can’t see you anymore!” She let go of Christa’s hand and set her jaw, resolute. “I’m sorry Christa, but I’ve decided.” Ymir jerked one leg, then the other. Christa winced as Ymir’s will overpowered her own. The massive exoskeleton ground into motion and began to lumber forward through the thick depths.
All Ymir could think of was getting the Jeager as far away as possible from the ongoing conflict by the chasm. Fluorescent blue plumes of the Kaiju’s body fluids unfurled in the depths as the Rose slashed out with twin blades. But the slow-moving titan was no match for its amphibious opponents. Ymir cursed herself for letting their argument eat away at the time that could have been spent ejecting safely. Any minute, the bomb that Eren and the Corporal were carrying could detonate. If they ejected now, the escape pods could be blown to bits by the explosion. The red of the Jeager’s interior lights and the blue controls and traffic-cone orange of the buttons and switches swam in her vision.
“Oxygen at thirty percent.”
Their oxygen supply was running low at an unusually quick rate. Damage to the oxygen tank? She could feel the pressure on her own body doubling as Christa’s senses melded with her own. The monitor showed that Christa’s oxygen levels were only slightly higher. The burn of exertion came with every movement.
Shit. Shit. Shit!
And suddenly, the joints of Sina’s knee locked. A pair of bright blue eyes burned into her own.
“I can’t let you do this,” Christa looked down. “You said you wouldn’t be able to live without me. But I’m just as selfish as you are…I won’t be able to live with myself if we run away now.” She paused to catch a shallow breath. “If we’re going to die, we have to die doing the right thing.”
“We’re not going to die. I won’t let us die.”
Christa smiled sadly, a resigned smile that broke Ymir’s heart. “Aren’t you supposed to be a realist, Ymir?”
She was right. Ymir desperately ran through what-ifs in her head, even though she already knew the possible outcomes. Sina was too slow and damaged to run underwater from either the Kaiju or the effects of the bomb. If they ejected now, there was no guarantee of safety. If the Jeager survived the blast, they would still have to deal with a depleted oxygen supply and possibly another Kaiju attack. If they managed to eject after the explosion, the escape pods provided a limited defense to a Kaiju. Even if the pods survived, the floatation devices most certainly would not, and no human could swim all the way to the surface from this depth.
“As long as this portal is open, we’ll never be able to live in peace,” said Christa.
“We’ll run away, you don’t have to do this!”
“Even if we could run, you know that it’ll be especially hard for the two of us to hide. Our secrets will catch up with us, eventually.”
Both of them had something that made them unable to live as “normal” people.
“Ymir, I don’t want you to hurt anymore. So please cooperate with me.”
The taste of something metallic bit at Ymir’s tongue. In the struggle she had attributed her strained breathing entirely to the low oxygen levels. A liquid warmth ran from her right nostril. A nosebleed from the strain of piloting a Jeager alone, from overriding Christa’s will.
“How many times do I have to say that this isn’t about me or you—it’s about us,” Ymir found herself unraveling, losing her composure.
“If we see this through, we’ll both be free.”
You’re wrong, Christa. It was your kindness and compassion towards a person like me that freed me, after I woke up in an unfamiliar world, not knowing who I was. No matter what happened, it didn’t matter as long as you were by my side.
“Whatever you decide, we can’t afford to fight like this right now. Our brains won’t be able to handle it,” Christa pleaded.
Ymir felt Christa resisting her, felt their melded consciousness roiling with one half trying pull against the other. She remembered Commander Irvin sneaking pills when he thought no one could see, wiping away the blood from his face. She remembered seeing teams whose minds were broken by conflict on the battlefield.
She couldn’t let that happen to Christa.
“Please, Ymir.” Christa raised her diminutive hand, engulfed by a metallic glove, and reached for Ymir. Ymir extended her own hand...and yanked.
“Ymir?”
A pop and a hiss. Christa’s eyes bulged as she gasped in surprise. Ymir held up her petite frame with her right arm, Christa’s oxygen line in her left.
“Sorry Christa, it’ll be alright. Just bear with it for a little bit.” Ymir’s fist slammed on the control panel.
“Eject sequence initiated. Disconnecting neural bridge.”
Ymir forced herself to tear her eyes away as the Jeager lifted a struggling Christa into an escape pod. She glanced at the monitor: sixty seconds until the Corporal detonated the bomb. This wasn’t the ideal solution, but it would have to do.
Make a choice and don’t regret it.
As she configured her own escape pod and felt her suit disconnect from the Yeager, the connection with Christa still lingered. In her partner she could sense surprise, desperation, panic, uncertainty.
But mostly, there was another feeling. Ymir found herself fighting a happy incredulity every time she sensed this from Christa. Something like this was really too good to be true.
“I’m happy that I got to see it one last time.”
And then everything was wiped clean by a rushing around her.
Thirsty.
So thirsty.
A dull pounding. Everything is muffled. Airplane ears, mountain-climbing ears that haven’t popped yet.
A million sensations all crammed into her head.
She doesn’t see the honeycombed windshield of Sina, only a washed-out grey sky.
There’s a strand of hair caught in her eyelashes, her eyelids flutter weakly, irritated, but she doesn’t reach up to brush it away.
“Christa.”
Long, tanned fingers part her hair to the side gently. The crust of dried blood lingers under the fingernails.
Ymir is lying on her stomach beside Christa, wet hair encrusted in sand and a maroon blotch forming on her cheek. “I probably look like hell. You, of course, still look like an angel.” She lets out a hoarse bark, which dissolves into coughing. “Can you hear it? The sea is churning. Guess those ugly monsters are coming over to wipe us out soon.”
“I hope you can forgive me for this, Christa. I don’t regret it. I figured, if we fell into that portal, we’d die pretty quickly.” Her voice is weak, her words halting. “Either we self-destruct, or we escape and the Kaiju wipe us out. So I thought, if we’re gonna die anyway, I might as well choose the way that would give me a few more moments with you.”
“You were thinking…that if we destroyed the portal, everything would be alright for me, right? You don’t have to feel responsible or bear my secrets. You’ve already done enough. Just by being here.” Christa opens her mouth, but only a broken croak comes out.
“It’s okay, you don’t have to speak.” Ymir grins. “I don’t need a neural handshake to be able to see through you. I can see your heart, crystal clear.”
“A ‘host’ like me: I thought that even if I saved everyone, the world wouldn’t be kind to me. But even when you found out what I am, you were kind to me and my rotten personality.”
Christa forces her voice out. “Ymir, you’re not rotten. You are…just as special to me.”
Ymir smiles. “I’m happy.” She slips off Christa’s glove, entwines their fingers. “It isn’t fair.” Her voice caught. “I just wanted more time. I wanted to hold your hand like this more, and touch your hair, and see your smile.”
Christa’s blue eyes overflow. “Ymir... Your hand. I can’t… I can’t feel it.”
“Can you feel this?” She presses her bruised cheek to Christa’s white one, touches their noses together, kisses away her tears until the beach is dyed grey by the first drops of the incoming storm. Christa says her name, over and over.
“Ymir…Ymir…”
And under the grey skies Ymir whispers Christa’s name back. The one only she knows.