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He sees the body dangling in the air and braces himself.
Far away, Eren in titan form roars and pounds the ground hard enough for Levi to feel the vibrations even from this distance, and he knows his squad is dead. They would never have allowed Eren to transform otherwise. The air is filled with howls that scream of agony and vengeance and incomprehensible fury, all the emotions that Levi has long since learned to control. He guards his heart even tighter. He will not let his emotions control him like an amateur. He is better than that.
Levi slips past Gunter without a sound.
On the ground in two places is Erd. His upper half faces up at Levi, a blank, emotionless expression on his face, and Levi allows himself only a momentary glance. Auruo, always the talker, is finally silent, his body grotesquely distorted with what blow that killed him.
They were prepared for this, Levi thinks, They are soldiers. Were.
He finally has to come to a stop for the body at the base of the tree. He takes it in slowly, eyes following the trail of blood going down the trunk until he has no choice but to look at her face. Petra, even in death, looks serene and peaceful, such a contrast to the blood splattered on her face and the unnatural angle her body lay in. Her open eyes were so deceiving; had Levi not known better, he could fool himself into believing that she might blink at any second, see him above her, maybe smile again in the gentle way she always did.
No. The only parts of Petra that would ever move now are her hair and cape in the forest breeze. The bright young recruit from years past, nervous but eager to be of use to the Recon Corps, has served her duty.
He slowly blinks, and looks at his frie- his soldiers, smashed and beaten by the enemy he could not capture. Their mangled corpses are painful to see, for each wound is a mark of his failure as their commanding officer. Couldn’t he at least close their eyes? Lay Gunter down with the others? Salute them with his right fist over his heart?
He turns away, aims his gear, and is on his way. He has spent too much time already when there is none to be spared. No burial nor honoring will bring them back; that is reality. The only thing to be done now is to focus on the enemy, lest even more lives are lost.