The blade was still warm from Titan blood. It hovered exactly two inches from Kaelen's throat.
The steam from the evaporating fifteen-meter carcass billowed around them like a ghostly fog, carrying the nauseating stench of boiling flesh. But Kaelen barely registered the smell. His entire universe had narrowed down to the razor-sharp edge of Captain Levi's steel and the dead, storm-gray eyes staring him down.
"I asked you a question, cadet," Levi repeated. His voice didn't rise in volume, but the sheer, crushing pressure behind it made the air feel too thick to breathe. "And I don't have the patience to ask a third time. Why did that Abnormal kill its own kind to protect you?"
Kaelen tried to speak, but his throat was glued shut. He swallowed hard, tasting the metallic tang of his own blood. "I... I don't know."
Levi's eyes narrowed by a fraction of an inch. He stepped closer, the tip of the blade grazing the skin of Kaelen's Adam's apple. "Wrong answer."
"I swear!" Kaelen choked out, his voice cracking into a pathetic, desperate rasp. "Sir, I don't know! My squad—Elias, Elara—they're dead! I got knocked out of the air! I thought it was going to eat me, I closed my eyes, and it just... it stopped! It bowed!"
"Bowed," Levi repeated flatly, the word dripping with disdain. "Titans don't bow. They don't protect. They eat. So either you are lying to me, or you aren't exactly human."
Before Kaelen could process the accusation, Levi moved. The Captain's boot snapped forward, driving the heel squarely into Kaelen's dislocated left shoulder.
A scream tore through the clearing. White-hot, blinding agony exploded through Kaelen's nerve endings. His vision whited out, and he instinctively curled into a fetal position in the dirt, clutching his ruined arm as tears streamed down his soot-stained face.
Levi watched him coldly, tracking the way Kaelen bled. The cadet's nose was bleeding from the earlier fall, and a deep scrape on his cheek was oozing red.
No steam. No sudden regeneration. No flashes of golden lightning.
"You break like a human," Levi muttered, sounding almost disappointed. He lowered his blade slightly but didn't sheathe it. "If you were a shifter, that level of pain should have triggered a reaction. So you're just a brat with a bizarre curse."
"C-Captain..." Kaelen gasped, unable to see straight through the tears of pain.
"Shut up," Levi snapped, his head suddenly snapping toward the dense tree line to the west.
The ground beneath Kaelen's back vibrated. It started as a faint tremor, then rapidly escalated into a rhythmic, terrifying drumming. Thump. Thump. Thump. Branches cracked with the volume of cannon fire. The horrific, booming laughter of a Titan echoed through the ancient woods.
The commotion, the flares, and the smell of blood had drawn more of them.
"Tch. Filthy pests," Levi clicked his tongue in profound annoyance. He finally sheathed his right blade, reaching down to grab Kaelen by the collar of his uniform. With a brutal yank, Levi dragged Kaelen to his feet, ignoring the cadet's cry of pain as his broken ribs ground together.
Levi hauled Kaelen backward, throwing him roughly against the massive roots of a giant oak tree. "Stay there. If you run, I'll assume you're a traitor and cut your legs off myself."
Levi didn't wait for a response. He turned his back on Kaelen, drawing a fresh blade from his hip scabbard with a sharp, metallic snikt.
Three Titans burst through the foliage simultaneously. Two ten-meters and an incredibly fat seven-meter, their grotesque, smiling faces swiveling frantically until they locked onto Levi. They broke into a horrifying, uncoordinated sprint.
From his spot slumped against the roots, fighting to stay conscious, Kaelen witnessed why Levi Ackerman was called humanity's strongest soldier.
Levi didn't retreat. He didn't seek high ground. He launched himself directly at them.
His ODM gear hissed, firing anchors not into the trees, but directly into the nearest Titan's kneecap. Levi reeled himself in at breakneck speed, using the Titan's own momentum against it. He spun like a bladed top, a blinding whirlwind of green cloth and silver steel.
Slash. The ten-meter's hamstrings were severed in a spray of hot blood. As it collapsed forward, Levi detached, using the beast's falling back as a springboard. He fired his wires into the jaw of the fat seven-meter, slingshotting himself up and over its head in a physics-defying arc.
Two precise cuts. The nape was gone.
Before the seven-meter even hit the ground, Levi was already airborne again, twisting through the air with a savage grace. He grappled onto the final ten-meter's shoulder, swinging entirely around its neck like a pendulum, and carved a massive wedge out of its nape.
Total elapsed time: less than fifteen seconds.
Three colossal monsters lay steaming on the forest floor, dissolving into nothingness. Levi landed softly atop the skull of the final Titan, standing perfectly balanced as the flesh evaporated beneath his boots. He flicked his blades to clear the blood, his face a mask of utter boredom.
The sheer disparity in strength made Kaelen sick to his stomach. His squad had been wiped out by two Titans in less than a minute. Levi had just dismantled three without breaking a sweat.
The sound of galloping hooves broke through the hissing of the Titan steam.
"Captain!"
A scout broke through the clearing, riding a dark bay horse and leading a spare by the reins. It was Petra Ral, her amber eyes wide with anxiety, though she visibly relaxed upon seeing Levi alive and unbothered.
"Petra," Levi said, stepping off the evaporating Titan skeleton and onto the solid earth. "Status."
"Commander Erwin has fired the black smoke signal! The right flank is completely compromised, and the vanguard is gone. We're ordered to fall back to the secondary rally point immediately," Petra reported, her voice clipped and professional, though her eyes darted nervously around the steaming clearing. Then, she noticed Kaelen slumped against the tree. "Is that... a survivor?"
"Of sorts," Levi said, walking back toward Kaelen.
Kaelen tried to push himself up, but his arm was completely useless, and the edges of his vision were starting to darken. Blood loss and shock were finally winning the war against his adrenaline.
"He's severely injured, Captain," Petra said, dismounting and rushing over to Kaelen. She quickly inspected his shoulder, wincing at the unnatural angle. "We need to get him on a horse—"
"Bind his hands first," Levi ordered coldly.
Petra froze, looking up at Levi in confusion. "Sir? He's a cadet. He's bleeding out."
"I know what he is, Petra. And I gave you an order," Levi's voice brooked absolutely no argument. "Bind his hands. Tightly."
Petra swallowed hard, nodding. She pulled a length of spare leather cord from her belt. "I'm sorry, Cadet," she murmured softly to Kaelen, gently pulling his good arm behind his back and tying it to his belt, securing him in an awkward, restrictive position.
"Get him on the spare horse," Levi commanded, his eyes never leaving Kaelen. "And Petra? You ride behind him. If he does anything strange—if his eyes change color, if he tries to bite his own tongue, or if any Titans start acting weird around us—you put a blade through his spine. Understood?"
Petra's breath hitched, but she was a veteran of the Levi Squad. She didn't question the absurdity of the order. "Understood, Captain."
With Petra's help, Kaelen was clumsily hoisted onto the back of the spare horse. The jarring movement sent a fresh wave of blinding pain through his chest, making him bite his lip until it bled to keep from screaming.
Levi mounted his own horse, snapping the reins. "Let's ride. We need to get back to the Commander."
As the horses broke into a desperate gallop, weaving through the massive trunks of the Titan forest, Kaelen leaned heavily against the horse's neck. The wind rushed past him, cold and biting. His squad was dead. His gear was destroyed. And now, humanity's greatest heroes were treating him like a ticking time bomb.
He closed his eyes, the memory of the fifteen-meter Titan bowing to him replaying on a loop in his fractured mind.
What am I? he thought, darkness finally pulling him under. What the hell am I?