Today is the day they will find out.

The thought ran circles through the Hunter's mind as he flew through the air, aiming himself (and those who followed him) like an arrow towards the Titan infested supply depot.

Those words slowed the Hunter's movements to a crawl as he paused on a roof top, waiting for the rest of his pack to land next to him.

He blinked several times, drawing in a what was supposed to be a deep, calming breath-

Which stuck in his throat like barbed wire as a familiar scent curled across his tongue.

His eyes widened and he looked around desperately, hastily trying to calm himself down, to double check, to make sure.

The hunter tasted the air, drawing in deep lungfulls of the stuff and rolling it over his tongue, slowly, thoughtfully.

It was hard to tell, over all the blood, sweat and other bodily fluids filling the air with their pungent stench, but... he was sure that he could smell Mikasa.

The problem was that he shouldn't have been smelling her. Mikasa was supposed to be on the rear guard, helping civilians and definitely not here. That didn't mean however that he could dismiss it as a mere mistake.

The Hunter knew that scent and he knew that for some reason Mikasa had diverged from the plan. Something had made her disobey orders and, for a moment, Eren was back and full of a sharp piercing fear.

The moment ended with the light patter of feet as his sq- pack landed next to him.

He couldn't risk them with his make believe games. He had to get them to the tower, had to save them all...

But the Hunter breathed in deep again and knew there was something he needed to do first.

"We are going that way,"

The humans simply nodded, following him and surprising the Hunter who had expected them to make some argument about going to the depot.

But they were silent, simply following him as he made his way through the maze of roof tops, chimneys and bloated bodies, occasionally stopping to draw in a breath of blood stained air.

Then there was a flash of red in the corner of his eye and the Hunter stopped, the hunter saw.

It was then that he froze, then that the blood in the Hunter's veins stopped running, that his breath crystallised in his chest, weighing down his body.

Mikasa was in a Titan's hand. She had been facing off against a Titan more than five times her size with little more than a broken blade and crushed gas cylinders.

She was bleeding.

The Hunter's breath hissed in his chest as he stared, wide eyed, utterly unmoving.

It had made her bleed. That thing was trying to eat her, stuff his flower into its mouth as if she was simply a piece of bread, as if she wasn't so much more than that.

This is the day they find out, the hunter thought distantly, not really registering the blurs of his pack as they flew past him (All but for Armin who stood by his friend's side, rooted to the spot in the horrifying sight of his best friend struggling in the grip of a monster.)

The hunter didn't look back once, as he raised his hand to his mouth and leaped forward, plummeting to the earth in a billowing cloud of steam.

It had been years, so many years now, since Eren had taken on his larger form.

For a moment he felt unsteady, perturbed as his flesh bubbled and expanded around him, consuming his smaller form in the boiling, twisted mass. Then the sheer familiarity of the sharp burning sensation hit him.

He was himself again, truly and completely.

Glowing sea green eyes snapped open and beheld the world spread out below in its sharp focus and mosaic of scents.

There was no time to relish this though, no time to become accustomed to the change.

There were screams before him as the humans noticed the new addition, and a large gasp of fear from behind, where the Hunter could not look.

The two Titans payed no attention to those humans running around them now though. One was more focused on devouring the morsel in its hands, and the other focused purely on saving said morsel.

The Hunter launched forwards, slamming the bony knuckles of his horse sized fists into every square inch of flesh that didn't occupy his night flower.

Gently prying Mikasa out from the tight grasping grip of the severed arm, he cradled her frozen form to his chest, kicking forwards with his right foot, straight through his opponent's neck with a crunching wet squelch.

With a sharp spin, the hunter threw off the already decaying body from his leg and turned his attention to his little one, now clasped gently between his hands.

There was a mild stabbing pain coming from there, almost like that of a flee bite. His little flower seemed to be attacking him, slicing her blades into his fingers in an attempt to get free.

Understandable really.

He gently extended his arms away from himself towards the frozen form of Armin, staring up at him with an expression the Hunter had never seen directed his way before.

The Hunter stilled as their eyes met, before looking away, ashamed, unable to meet the petrified gaze for any longer than that one, searingly painful moment.

He carefully placed Mikasa down, next to his flower. Pausing again as he felt Armin shift away, backing away from the friend turned foe.

There was a long moment of silence as the Hunter stared blankly into space, then he nodded.

...Understandable really.

Carefully he took several steps back covering his nap in case she decided to go after the 'strange titan'.

She didn't though, she just stared. Eyes as wide as saucers she met the Hunter's gaze with a slack jaw and a lost expression.

"E-Eren?" came Armin's quiet shaking voice.

The Hunter didn't look at him, averting his eyes from his- from the humans, turning away from the expression he knew would be on their faces.

Betrayal, hatred. He... he didn't want to see it.

He moved, step echoing with each pounding leap he took as he ran away.

Eren is a Titan.

Armin blinked and tried that again.

Eren, my friend, turned into a fifteen metre giant and beat up a Titan.

Nope. It still didn't make sense, no matter how many times he tried to phrase it.

"-min! Armin!"

Armin blinked several times, realising he was being shaken by an irritable and worried looking Mikasa.

"Hello Kasa," Armin murmured with a warped, wide-eyed smile.

"...Hello Armin," Mikasa returned quietly, before bringing her hands up to her friend's head to check for injuries.

"I'm fine," Armin murmured, a faint but real smile curling at his mouth at Mikasa's mothering nature.

"I'll be the judge of that. What happened? Where's Eren?"

The small smile dropped off Armin's face.

He jumped off a building, turned into a giant and ran off. No.

Eren seems to be a bit larger than life. And by that I mean he's a freaking Tita- No.

Mikasa, our friend- who can't even kill a spider no matter how much I beg- just turned into a fifteen meter Titan and decapitated another Titan with his foot.

No-o it just... didn't quite sound right.

In the end Armin settled for opening and closing his mouth a few times like a goldfish and shaking his head.

"He's... around,"

Mikasa stared at him suspiciously, eyes sharp and concerned.

"Let's go find him then,"

"No! I- I mean, it's probably better if we follow that Titan right now. He's on our side, best- best keep him alive,"

Armin attached one of his gas cylinders to Mikasa, ignoring her sharp protest.

"Yours were smashed right? You should take them, you're stronger, you can make better use of this while carrying me,"

Mikasa breathed a sharp sigh of relief.

"For a moment there I thought you were being a fool and trying to get me to leave you behind,"

Armin gave a strangled laugh at that.

"Then who would be around to keep you and Eren out of trouble?" he joked, hiding the maelstrom of emotions whirling in his head with a mild smile.

There was a patter of feet as Mina and Mylius joined them, doing a reasonable imitation of Armin's goldfish impression from earlier.

"T-that Titan is killing the others. What the h-hell is going on?!" Mylius finally stuttered out with wide unbelieving eyes.

"Don't know, I really don't know. But I am going to find out," Armin hummed.

It wasn't just Mikasa who hadn't forgotten Eren, Armin soon found.

As they flew after 'the Titan' Mina and Mylius started bombarding Armin with questions on Eren's whereabouts.

"He went ahead," was all that Armin said, in a clear and final tone of voice, just loud enough to be heard over the whistle of wind and clanking of cables as they made their way through the shattered city.

They dropped down at one of the buildings, watching with wide eyes as the Titan attacked one of its own, pulling its arms tight into its body like a boxer.

Like Eren, Armin quietly thought.

"It's the Beserker! He's here?! How is he alive?!"

Armin looked around at Connie's surprised screech, as the guy dropped down beside them with several other familiar faces and huge, bulging eyes.

"The Beserker?" Armin echoed faintly.

The Titan who tried to defend Shiganshina? Who fought against its own kind and met its end there... on the same day that Eren came into their lives...

"It died! I saw it died."

The group was silent for the longest time, simply watching the 'berserker' barreling through Titan after Titan, eyes positively glowing in its feral fervour as it painted itself red with minced chunks of its prey.

Mouths fell wide, skin paled and many eyes shined with what could be mistaken for either fear or hope.

It should have been fear but somehow it felt like hope.

Mikasa held no such expression in her eyes though, turning to Armin and pulling him back to hiss into his ear:

"Where is Eren?"

"He's go-"

"I found Nac; he was in your team" Mikasa interrupted, staring intently at Armin as he numbly registered the meaning of those words. "I went looking for you because I was scared- I thought that your team got in trouble. Armin...W h e r e i s E r e n?"

Armin's eyes unwillingly turned back to the gigantic figure ripping a small Titan asunder like it was tearing paper.

"He- he turned into a Titan," he stated, a single hysterical hitch belaying the calmness of his monotone.

The following silence was made all the louder for the distant roars of the Beserker titan.

"...What?"

Armin stared at the bloody scene unfolding before them with wide, feverish eyes.

"It all makes sense now: why he didn't know how to speak our language properly, how he never talks about himself or where he comes from? Think of what day we met him on. Mikasa, he's from outside the walls. He's the ti-"

"Stop it Armin." Mikasa whispered as she took hold of Armin's shoulders and tried to calm the hitching shuddering movements taking over his frame. "How can Eren be a Titan? You're not making any-"

"-He saved you." Armin interrupted, voice suddenly calm and blue eyes steady as they met her's. "He protected you. Look at his eyes again. Mikasa, justlook at him," Armin pleaded as he twisted his friend around by the shoulders, to point at the Titan standing not far from them now as it surveyed it's dissolving quarry.

Mikasa felt the world slowly freeze around her as she stared at the creature.

Slowly the Titan was turning away, it's shoulder length hair shifting with each steady movement.

She could not see its face.

The Titan paused, cocking its head slightly to the side before shifting its weight to the right and quickly bringing up its left leg to kick through the stomach of a new arrival.

She could not see its eyes.

A step forward, then another, and Mikasa was moving, ignoring the shouts and pleas of those around her.

She needed to see. She needed to know.

Mikasa's whole body trembled as the Titan froze, taking in deep breaths through its nose and breathing them out through his mouth in a faint haze of steam.

The world surrounded by snow, covering the filthy dirt of their new 'home', making everything within Trost for once seem pure and uncorrupted. Eren smiling at her in an angel shaped puddle, taking in deep breaths of the crisp air through his nose and releasing them through his mouth in a plume of steam; a lazy, content smile on his face.

She didn't need to see his face. She didn't need to see his eyes.

"Eren," she breathed.

The Titan jerked faintly but did not turn, simply staring into space, unblinkingly, unmovingly. Chest rising and falling in short sharp movements.

She didn't feel or hear the arrival of the others as they landed around her once again. Her attention was solely focused on the back of her friend's head as he steadfastly ignored her gaze.

What she did notice was when they started talking. If only for the fact that Eren took notice of it too.

"-could lure it to the depot. There are too many Titans there right now, no one can refill their tanks. If we get this thing to distract them we might survive this," Mina was saying with a painfully hopeful voice.

"He heard you..." Mikasa murmured.

The group looked at her in confusion then at the Titan who, sure enough, had angled himself towards the depot towers with a calculating look in his eyes.

There was a moment of silence, filled only with the distant rumble of giant steps and soft, far of screams. Then the Beserker moved.

There was a rush of wind as the squad watched it disappear, slightly dazed as they stumbled in its wake.

"This is crazy," Connie breathed, preparing himself to fly again. "I mean this is total bat shit. It understood us?! Am I even awake?"

Armin started to laugh hysterically and Mikasa stared at him blankly.

"Let's go," was all that she could say.

Body after body collapsed into steam under his fists. He no longer stopped to breath in the red stained haze of his work, no longer roared his feral pleasure as fingers dug into meat and teeth broke into bone.

There was no time to enjoy. There were too many for that, too many.

But the Hunter couldn't stop now, even as he felt blunt teeth ripping into his body, even as he felt himself being torn into and parted by writhing, wriggling fingers.

No. His humans were still in that building. He needed to make it safe for when they came out. He needed to-

There were too many.

Hands forced him back, pinning him into a crumbling building, rubble slipping under him and crashing back every time he tried to push off, to get away from those teeth eating into his stomach.

Then a voice sounded.

"Eren,"

It was small, whispered and full of harsh pain.

The Hunter's eyes flickered, then they sharpened into a flint like gaze as many voices sounded.

"It's being eaten?!"

"They're eating it!?"

"Over there, that's the Titan that killed Thomas,"

His ears twitched at that, eyes spinning and feet digging into the churned up ground as he barreled himself forward, blood pouring from his body like a fountain as he literally ripped himself from the ravenous Titan horde, towards that one who had consumed his frightened friend. The one who had not cared for that terrified man it had swallowed down.

It was dead in mere moments but he didn't stop, he couldn't stop. Legs swinging, teeth snapping and eyes burning, he hunted down the last of his quarry until it was over, and the Hunter stood above their deformed, melting remains.

He felt hollow.

It hadn't helped. He didn't know why. Usually it helped.

"Eren,"

He blinked up at the sky, fighting against the darkness threatening to devour him.

"E-Eren," came that voice again. It was so quiet, too quiet for him to have really heard it against the screams around him and the distant roars of his kin.

He must have imagined it...

It was only when the rubble crumbled against his back that he realised he had fallen back into one of the ruined buildings.

He shook his head, trying to clear his mind as wavering vision.

"My little hunter, please..."

No. Not giving up. Not now. Not ever.

The Hunter pushed himself up, staring down at his arms as they slowly weaved new flesh over the growing bone.

K-keep going. S-save them. I. WILL. SAVE. THEM!

His roar echoed through the shattered structures around him.

He knew what he had to do.

Slowly, he pushed himself off that crumbling structure, broken feet shuffling and stuttering with every step as he forced himself to move.

Steam trailed in his wake as he painfully picked his way towards his goal.

Time stretched and warped as he stumbled forward, using the buildings around him to push forward with his raw, skeletal limbs.

In what felt both like no time and an eternity at once, he found himself standing before that boulder, looking down at it with hazy eyes as he circled it and considered it's weight.

"It's another one Sir!"

The Hunter's eyes widened, alarm clearing away the hazy edges of his vision. No, not now.

"Oh gods! It's another fifteen metre!"

His hands still weren't properly formed, could they protect his nape properly?

"We have to attack now, while it's weak. I'll go in on the right, private you go in on the left!"

He looked around wildly, both hands now covering his neck.

"No wait! That Titan isn't going to attack you!" Came the voice of one of his flowers. The Hunter found he couldn't look their way though as he stared blindly forward.

"Get away from me child! Have you gone mad?"

"No! Listen to him! He's not lying, that Titan-"

"Enough of this! Cut at the muscles in it's arms, make it drop its hands,"

"No! Don't attack it!" Came a new voice. A voice that made the Hunter pause and listen to its wild tone of both desperation and happiness.

The Hunter glanced around wildly, as a faintly familiar figure dropped amongst those soldiers.

He squinted at it, trying to remember where-

Oh. Oh it was them. That human with the glasses, the odd one who had cried over him and seemed to be a companion of- of...

"There you are,"

His body stiffened, eyes widening and steaming hands loosening on his nape.

Slowly, he turned and looked down at the boulder before him.

Perched on the centre of the rocky mass, straightening his cream white cravat, was him. It was his human.

Dwarf Levi.

The hunter's arms dropped in shock, limply falling to his side as he met the now startled gaze of his human.

He didn't even hear the sudden clamour of yells and screams behind him, his eyes only on Levi as he saw his human's eyes flicker from stunned surprise to a dark glare at something behind the Hunter.

Then Levi was moving, cords shooting out as he swung outwards, faster than the eye could track, blades outstretched.

The Hunter didn't have time to panic as those wires cut into him. He just had enough time to turn and see-

Levi colliding with another human, blades clattering and screeching against theirs as he unceremoniously shoved them backwards and away from the Hunter's nape.

There was a long silence in which the echoes of that crash of metal against metal reverberated across the rubble and ruins of the battleground.

The Hunter's mind went white with complete and utter shock as he watched the dwarf grab the falling attacker, pulling his wires from the Hunter's body with a soft sting and shooting up towards the other humans.

He... he just...?! The hunter couldn't even complete that thought as this strange reality caught up with him.

"Stop your attack morons!" He distantly heard him command the other humans.

The hunter could smell their surprise, sharp and bitter, at the fact that Levi, Humanities Strongest, the renowned Titan slayer, had just defended a Titan.

"Stop your attack," he ordered again before turning back and meeting the Hunter's unmoving gaze.

Short breaths heaved at the Hunter's chest. He couldn't have looked away even if he wanted to.

And Levi stared back, brow slightly furrowed as he unflinchingly met that freakishly intelligent gaze of the Titan.

It felt like hours before one of them moved. In actuality it was mere minutes before the Hunter, still not breaking that gaze, slowly lifted his hand from his side, pointed to the bolder and the breach then back to himself.

Gasps echoed and a babble of shocked and alarmed voices rose around them.

The Corporal and the Hunter didn't notice this though as their locked gaze continued.

Then Levi nodded, tight and quick.

The Hunter tore his gaze away from those steely traps, turning to the boulder and squatting down.

Muscles screaming and teeth gritting, the Hunter lunged with his body, pulling rock from Earth with a scraping screech of tearing stone.

It was heavy, possibly the most heavy thing the Hunter had ever lifted.

For every moment he stood with that weight upon his shoulders, he felt like his body was being pushed, being crushed, closer and closer to the ground.

Better start moving then.

Step by shaking step, the Hunter began to move, eyes latched on his goal, on that gate.

His mind wasn't though, it was still lost, fluttering from grey stormy eyes to aching, agonising predictions.

Soon the humans would all discover the truth, that the thing they took in, the thing they trusted as a human was not in fact human. They would find out that the being they called 'Eren' was the same creature that hunted them during their waking hours and consumed their dreams.              

Mikasa.. how would she react? Would she try to save him ?-What was that?- or would she be filled with disgust? And how... how would his flower even be able to look at him? A monster, the same that stole their families and their futures... to see him looking at him, knowing what he was... he couldn't... he- he...

The Hunter's breath froze and his step fell short, almost sending him to the earth before he grounded his stance and stood tall once more, staring at the shattered gate just before him.

... He knew what he was going to do.

He stopped walking and looked around himself, wincing as he saw the humans flying around, tackling everything in his path, felling Titans like lumber.

His gaze searched desperately amongst the figures, only to stop and relax as he saw his flowers land on a nearby building staring at him with a strange mixture of apprehension and confusion on their faces.

He looked back at the breach, then at his humans.

A look of horrified realisation dawned on Armin's face and the Hunter was turning away, unable to look again, deaf to everything, even the shouts of his sun flower.

"Wait! Eren don't!"

The Hunter hefted the boulder, higher on his shoulders, slowly turning in place within the breach.

He took one last look at the world within the walls, eyes somehow finding and latching onto the startled expression of his human's face as he landed on a nearby building.

"No!" Levi shouted, rocketing off the structure.

But he was too late.

The Hunter heaved up the rock with all his strength, moving backwards through the wall as he guided the boulder into place.

The sound of startled shouts and panicked yells was cut off with the deafening slam of rock against rock.

The following silence was broken only by the thudding echo of that noise and the deep tremulous inhales of breath, resonating through the Hunter's massive form.

He turned and stared out at the empty lands stretching all around him, gazing out at where he had been trying to escape to for so long.

He hesitated, looking back one last time at the silent rock behind him, oblivious to the human forms on the other side, yelling and smashing their fists against the unrelenting rock.

He turned back to face the unfamiliar world before him and started to move.

His eyes itched and burned as he ran, as he ran away from his humans, away from Eren.