Levi stared at the rock before him, eyes tracing the pattern of soft fractures and cracks encasing the surface below his shaking hands.

There was no way through. He could try to scale the wall but there would be no point. By the time he got up there, it would be too late.

Levi closed his eyes, lips curling back over his teeth as he brought down his fists again, flakes of rock crumbling below them, circling down into the streets below. The streets that Titan had saved. The homes of so many humans that would be dead but for that... but for him.

But for Levi's Titan, humanity would have yet again been at the mercy of beings that could never even begin to understand the concept of it.

The afterimages of that massive form were imprinted in his mind; of those strange, unfathomable eyes that gazed at him as the colossal mass of rock descended, full of emotion... full of...

Levi looked up again, eyes flashing in the dim light.

To hell with this. He was getting that Titan back if it was the last thing he did.

Three weeks later.

Irritation rippled up his body as Levi stepped out of the meeting with a deep scowl. He vaguely knew he should be pleased (Hanji was practically jumping for joy by his side) but all he could feel was anger that it had taken this long.

Three weeks to get permission to venture past those walls, like Scouts were supposed to do. Three weeks to finally be told 'oh right that abomination Titan that saved all our asses, that we owe all our lives to, yeah you should probably go have a look into that.'

Three weeks for his Titan to get further and further away.

Levi huffed out a deep sigh and turned to Hanji who appeared to be doing some odd form of jumping jacks in the middle of the hall.

"How soon can we leave?" He interrupted the fool, tugging them back onto the earth again as they blinked owlishly down at him.

"Well, Erwin's got all the supplies ready. So probably tomorrow. He's got the new recruits ready and everything- which, by the way, has gotta be our biggest haul in years! Can you believe that Levi?! They must be joining because of our Beserker!"

"Should have known Eyebrows would be ready this quick," Levi murmurs.

"Yes! He got me to build the wire cage pretty much as soon as he found out about our little Titan and got me to work out where he could've gone! I told him-"

"I know idiot. You've already told me," Levi grumbled as they walk down the stairs, Hanji basically hanging off his shoulder as they continued to ramble on about all the different forests they knew about in his ear.

As much as it irritated him, it made sense. A forest was where they first found the Titan so it wasn't too much of a leap to assume that the thing liked trees for some godsforsaken reason.

Levi sighed again as they stepped outside of the building, looking up the overcast sky then over to the wall towering high above him.

Soon he'd be passing through that gate once more. Soon he'd be riding across the plains doing what he did best...

Soon he'd find his Titan.

Leaves rustled in the wind, branches juddering and squeaking as they rubbed against each other. It was loud, almost deafening to sensitive ears... and it all felt like a whisper to Eren.

Everything felt silent.

No wonder with the cool weather and overcast sky, the Hunter told himself, rough bark flaking under his fingers as he ran his hands over the creaking branch he was perched on.

There was no bird-singing. There should have been, even in this weather; it was a forest with many places for living things to make their lives, but there wasn't a single song... or if there was the Hunter couldn't hear it.

He could hear the scratching of his nails over the bark though. He could feel the odd piece of lichen and moss and see their muted bursts of green over the greyish- reddish bark of the great tree.

He took in a deep breath of air and released it slowly over his tongue. There were no strong scents in the wind but for the faint taste of old, blood infused steam, the stale hints of the distant animals and the once fresh and biting taste of growing life and rich earth.

It was funny how these smells tasted bland now. He should have rejoiced in them, he'd lived a long time in the company of trees and animals, so why-

The Hunter took another shuddering breath in.

The taste is good, he told himself. His nose didn't twitch, his mouth didn't water. It was a simple scent, safe.

His hands stilled in its task of tearing bark off of the tree.

Yeah...it was safe.

The hunter buried his head in his hands.

"Two gas canisters,"

"Check."

"Spare blades,"

"Check."

"...Perfume,"

"Ch- check."

"Spare cables..."

There was silence.

"Cables Armin?" Mikasa looked up from her own equipment, a soft frown eating at her face. She didn't say anything though as she watched her friend quietly stare at the vial of purple tinted liquid in his hands.

"...Cables," she repeated once more, eyes intent on his as he blinked and refocused on the world around him.

"Oh... uh, check."

Mikasa sighed, pulling a wound up real of cables and shoving them in front of Armin.

"Check," she told him, as her friend started and looked in his bag where there turned out to be no spare cables.

"Sorry Mika, I'm- I'm a little distracted," Armin murmured, running a slender hand through his too long hair.

"...Just make sure you're not distracted when we're out there," was Mikasa's only response to this.

The two friends fell into silence, looking around them as their fellow squad members bustled about, packing rations and extra equipment into their already bursting bags and rapidly muttering to each other in quiet, nervous voices.

In Armin and Mikasa's little bubble of silence, those voices sounded muffled and distorted. They didn't notice that many of those quiet conversations were about them... and the person most dear to them.

"So he's really gone?"

"No one's been able to find him. It's been three weeks now. He's not the sort to desert."

"Didn't think he was the type to die either though... Don't you think-"

"It's been three weeks, nothing's been found."

"He must have been swallowed whole-"

"Shut up! Shut the hell up!"

Mikasa and Armin looked up at that, attention caught on the familiar figure of Jean glaring down a group of soldiers not far from them. They scattered like roaches as Jean glowered at them and tightened his fists.

Then all that anger from his form abruptly faded away, to be replaced by a bright flash of searing pain and empathy as he caught sight of Armin and Mikasa, silently staring at him.

They turned their faces away, away from the clear expression of grief so heavily imprinted on his face. They found they hadn't been able to look most of their friends in the face over the last few weeks.

"We-we're heading out soon," came the hesitant hitching voice of Sasha, gazing at them both with a horribly blank expression in her eyes.

She was in mourning.

Mikasa and Armin stared at their hands and nod as one, gathering their things about them and standing tall.

"Let's go," Mikasa quietly spoke, offering Sasha a quick nod before walking off.

Armin trailed in her wake, only for his steps to hitch and stall as she turned and he saw the expression on his oldest friend's face.

"We're going to find him Armin," Mikasa told him, raising her hands to his shoulders, grip soft but firm. "We will bring him back."

Armin gaped at her for a moment in shock before a similar expression enveloped his features.

"Y-yeah. Let's bring him home."

The two friends gazed at each other with steady, determined smiles turning at their lips.

"Let's bring him home."

The Hunter swung his legs out over the massive abyss below his makeshift shelter. A huff of hot air escaped his lips as he carefully pushed his hand out over the piece of wood once more. He hummed to himself while splinters of the branch flecked up around his rough hand as he finished smoothing out the crude bow.

The soft hum faded away as the Hunter looked up from his work and took in the quiet movement of the trees around him and the far off caw of a single crow.

He forced himself to focus back on his work, haltingly trying to hum again only to stop as he heard the soft echo to it. His brow furrowed and he brought his hand across the bow once more, harder than he would have usually.

Tying on a piece of spare wire to make the draw string, he slung his creation over his shoulder, along with the bundle of crude stone-headed arrows he had made. They weren't perfect but they'd be okay for simple practice.

The Hunter stood, unconcerned by the shuddering, squeaking creak under his feet as the thin branch complained against this movement, and aimed his first arrow at a tree stump far far below. The smudge of brown wood was barely even visible as a dim speck to normal eyes in the dim evening light.

The Hunter was aiming for the second ring from the center. He narrowed his eyes, waited a moment to account for the wind and let go.

It didn't hit the target.

The Hunter puffed out another gusty sigh, staring at the arrow deeply embedded in the fourth ring of the stump. At least the arrow was quite durable, even if it wasn't as aerodynamic as he wanted. Perhaps if he-

A far off, resonating crash of tree against tree broke the Hunter from his musings.

...Okay, that one was definitely not his fault this time.

He jumped up from his perch, pushing his light form from branch to branch as quick as a strike of lightning, to get to a vantage point and assess the cause of the fallen tree.

Then he saw it- or rather: then he saw her. A enormous blond haired titan was running through his forest, looking around itself with cold, almost imperceivable frustration in it's eyes. But to the Hunter, who had been kept company only by mindless smiling teeth for most of his life, the small hint of emotion on that Titan face's screamed out at him like metal on metal.

It can feel... It is thinking...

How...?

He made ready to put his hand to his mouth, to go after it but then the crashing of trees drew his attention once more.

No, it wasn't another thinking Titan, much to the Hunter's disappointment. Instead it was the usual mashed up rush of Titans, seemingly running after the blond one as they scrabbled through her wake.

No, they weren't getting her. He looked down at the bow and arrows in his hands then back at the horde.

...Moving targets.

He could do it. He could hunt and go after that strange Titan at the same time.

So caught up in the happy prospect of a new wave of distractions, the Hunter didn't even scent the air before descending.

If he had, he may have smelt the human blood.

Fuck forests. Levi thought to himself as he fired his wires forward once more and cannoned forward, hair whipping backwards in sharp contrast to the steady movement of his body against the forceful rush of air.

Forests could all burn to hell for all Levi cared.

Everything had gone to hell as soon as they got remotely close to the place, as soon as that female Titan appeared.

Why had he tried to follow the thing? Why didn't he wait for more back up like Petra tried to tell him?

Well... he knew why really. The female Titan was new. It was different. Just like his Titan. So it was logical to assume that maybe they were somehow linked... Well perhaps not so much logical as possible, but how could he let that chance to find him slip away?

... He had anyway though. It only took him half an hour to loose sight of the aberrant and find himself alone and- as much as he hated to admit it- lost in the godsforsaken clump of trees.

Shit. This is just-

Levi started as he felt his gear shudder on his hips with a wrenching, ear piercing sound of metal on fucked up metal.

Shit shit shit.

Without hesitating, he quickly dropped down to the nearest branch of one of the giant-ass trees surrounding him.

It creaked slightly under the added weight but not enough to cause concern. No, what Levi was concerned about was the fact that his cables weren't retracting.

He tapped the black box experimentally and tentatively squeezed the triggers on his blades. When an ominous white light started flickering from the box, he quickly decided to stop.

Damn, if it had been anything else he would have been able to- well... probably not fix it, but he would've been able to at least cobble something together to keep him going for a bit, but black boxes were another matter. No one new how to fix the things, only those who made the bloody things understood what the hell went into them. It was just his luck he got the messed up one.

Levi mildly wondered what it was with him and forests.

He looked around himself at the darkening woodland with a disdainful curl of his lip, momentarily considering shouting out, seeing if there was anyone nearby. The problem with that marvellous plan was that Titans had fucking ears too and with his luck being the way it was he'd probably call over ten at once. If hewas lucky though, he-

It was then that Levi stopped considering his options, instead sharply focusing on his surroundings with a faint downturn of his brow. He hadn't heard anything but something felt off...

There was a quiet rush of wind, the noise from it almost over powered by the squeaky creaking sound of the trees moving around him.

...Wait.

And Levi was moving, jumping up to another branch just in time to avoid the meaty paw that smashed through both silence and wood. He glared down from his new perch as the bloated digits of a Titan scrabbled around in the space he occupied not seconds before.

Well fuck luck then.

He prepared his blades, quickly wrapping the loose cables around his arms so to use them as a lasso if worst came to worst.

The worst didn't come though.

Instead a stranger did. A hooded figure swinging through the forest at the speed of sound, burying their blades into the Titan's neck with a sound like a wet meat grinder.

The soldier dropped to the next branch below Levi, light footsteps echoing the thudding crash of his kill upon the earth. The figure took a moment to survey their kill before checking the steaming blades in their hands.

A faint beam of grey light, streaming down from the canopy, caught on the angle of that blade, sending the soft ray of light into it's owner's shadowed face. Out of the hooded darkness, two ocean eyes sparkled out.

And Levi was moving before the thought to even crossed his mind.