AN: The Yukinoshita crime syndicate runs half of Wall Sina. Royal officials, the Military Police and the oligarchs alike have long been in the notorious' family's pocket. But when Yukinoshita Yukino stuns everyone with the announcement that she will join the Survey Corps, she won't just have the titans to worry about. One of her fellow cadets wants revenge. Against her and her family, for the wrongs that they did his. But he also wants something back. AU

Before we begin, an update on the Broken Glass epilogue- it IS still happening, and is currently about half done, but is also coming along slowly. At times I found myself a little lacking in impetus, and it didn't help that my mind was also partly on the transition between stories, wondering what exactly I should focus on next. So, I found myself in the peculiar position of writing three fics simultaneously, amongst them the Broken Glass epilogue, a piece of shameful HachiYuki shipping and this. It just so happened that the crossover was what I ended up finishing first.

So the idea's been knocking around my head for awhile. It is briefly mentioned on my profile, but I think it needs a little more explanation before jumping straight into the story. This is set in an AU where, first and foremost, the original AoT's plotline on the persecution of Asians is basically not a thing simply for convenience, and the canonical characters of AoT play no part. Only the basic set up of the world at the start of the AoT series applies: the Eldia and Marley backstories and plotlines may not apply either, as tbh I actually started losing interest in the manga once things became more convoluted and the basic principle of human vs titan (and also the fear factor of the titans) was lost. Therefore, the world of this fic is the same in the basic principles, but will probably just be kept to humanity vs titans behind the walls without any complications. The Shiganshina wall break will not happen in this story. Furthermore, I still don't know whether this fic will end up being anything more than an experiment, so basically, a lot of things are still up in the air.

Apologies for the slightly overlong AN, but I felt it was necessary considering the story and its possible complications. Again, I'd like to stress that this still a bit of an experiment and continuation is only a possibility at the moment. Nonetheless, I hope enjoy this first chapter. Please do write a review telling me what you thought.

The Life Awaiting

Chapter One:

The village of Arisie had always stood near the foot of a hill, just below a tributary of the river that ran through the territory of Wall Maria. It was neither a large nor small village- enough to be recognized on a map of a region, but nowhere near large enough to attract any attention. If approaching the wall by the main roads, or along the line of the river, one would only see the hill that silhouetted it; silhouetted the cold, slumbering stone houses, only a few of which had stood up in the perpetual shadow of the hill for longer than the people who occupied them. Visitors never stayed in the village of Arisie for very long. Generations of families came to the village, stayed for a night or a month or a year, and then left as easily as the generations of places that they stayed in, hastily pulled into existence and then hastily yanked out of it. These were the houses not tangible enough for a tiled roof, and these were the city families naively seeking a rustic life only to leave again when the rustic ceased to be refreshing, or the couples seeking the cheaper living of Shiganshina, only a little east of Arisie, who only stopped for a few nights. These were also the people seeking an escape, from someone or something, because they thought that the village choked by the cloud of the hill might just offer that.

These were the people, and many more on top of them, who came and left the village of Arisie. Only a select few had chosen Arisie to be the place they came to, and didn't leave. They were small men and women- not small in character, or significance, but in choice. They accepted the minuteness, the notion that Arisie was only a speck of grass and dirt, flanked by stone and cities and enormity, and they continued. They talked to the other families like them, and they walked down to the tributary of the river where any number of fish could be caught, and lived through countless fathers and mothers, wading through them like a man who has reached the shallows of an ocean after months lost in its depths, all of them in the same small houses and the same small village.

All of humanity was small. Above them and around them, the huge grey walls watched and waited.

The Hikigaya family were not one of those who had stayed in Arisie, but they had every intention of remaining there until they had. They arrived and circled around the hill, into the shadow, only a season ago. The families who had stayed didn't like them, just as they hadn't liked the families or couples who came and left before them. Or perhaps it was more so that they didn't care. The ever-present shift of the people around them, of the houses, was a regularity to them, a regularity like the rampant sprints of the tributary past to the hill to the river, and the flourish and death of the green, the colour of the grass emblazoned onto the hill in summertime, and the ashen tears where it was ripped away in winter. They could tell that the Hikigayas were from the city, or a district, Trost or past even that, into Wall Rose, into Wall Sina. Some had come before- from the interior- but they had never lasted longer than a season or two. They did not expect the Hikigayas to be anything but one of the ever-present visitors.

The family did not care much. They were grateful that they'd been permitted to stay at all. Much of their savings had disappeared like birds shot from the sky by the time they passed through the gates of Wall Rose- the price to open them was notoriously extortionate. It locked away the poor from the well off, but rarely did it lock the well off from the poor. They couldn't allow themselves to care about the extremity either, or the irregularity, of the situation that they'd fallen into. They could definitely not be visitors to the village of Arisie. They had to be a family that stayed, and a family that could never return to the place that had once seemed inconceivable, absurd even, for them to leave.

Hikigaya Fumiya was not middle aged yet. He'd forced himself through thirty two summers, and often found that he felt young. That a part of him were still tearing past the cobblestones streets around his great grandfather's house, barefoot, with the air that kissed his windswept black hair still quivering in the youthful screech of his wake. At others he felt unbearably old and tired- he'd stare at the hill keeping him, his family and the village hidden away, and see a strange connection, as if he and the hill had stood together, staring at absolutely nothing, for hundreds of years. His family, his fathers, had been soldiers. Members of the Military Police regiment, servants of the king and the interior only in name. Not out of any faith or loyalty to the crown, but because joining the military was the only way that someone without financial means could get into the interior. Hikigaya Fumiya's great grandfather had made the same choice that had he had: to leave and find a new place for his family so that they might save themselves from more scars, and so that the old ones might start to heal.

Arisie hadn't been part of the choice. Thinking, planning, picking and choosing a place to run to had not been a liberty he could afford. Even with the wages from the regiment to support them, before they had to flee, liberty had come at a high price. Everything in Wall Sina came at a high price. In Wall Maria, there were no such expenses, no such complexities other than the complexity of paying to reach the outskirts itself. No such thing of any kind but tributaries and dotted houses and more and more land. Arisie was the pathetic oasis they stumbled onto after weeks of aimlessness. They hadn't enough money to build their own house, but there had been a rundown cabin on the other side of the tributary to the rest of Arisie, owned by an elderly man who had once needed it, needed it for when there had been others he cared for like Fumiya did.

He'd been happy to give it to them for a pittance. Any upholding the cabin needed (and it needed it desperately), would not be his responsibility. The wooden roof was damaged, the right wall felt as flimsy as parchment and some of the floorboards were close to rotting. It wasn't fit for anyone with another option they could fall back onto. The Hikigayas had none, so they allowed the old man to think they were brainless, and moved in without so much as a whisper of protest. Hikigaya Fumiya, his wife and his eight year old son.

A season later, and they had replaced most of the floorboards and fixed the roof. He hadn't dared touch the wall yet, probably out of fear. Wall Maria, the village of Arisie, was the smallest corner of civilization. The edge of humanity. If the walls of this life were as fragile as the walls of his last, then he thought it for the best that they remained untouched.

Seventy three days since they'd moved into the cabin, and close to ninety since they'd left Wall Sina. Soon, it would be even closer to ninety, once the sun finally set. Fumiya was watching it again. The fall of the sun behind the hill of Arisie. Habits and routines are as comforting to him as they are to every person. They've always helped him to be calm, to feel a semblance of however stunted control. He made sure that there were routines when he was training as a cadet, when he just about graduated in the top ten to join the Military Police, just like his fathers, and when he suddenly found himself with a family to take care of. He wished that came as easily as falling into a habit. Watching the fading walls of sunlight collapse beneath the hill from the cabin's porch was easy. Catching fish from the tributary when the walls of light still burned strong was easy enough. Taking care of his family was not.

He blinks. The light is being cast just above his forehead, onto the black hair and the ahoge that his wife has tried to flatten more times than he can remember.

She was quick to succumb to it too. The stagnation of a rhythm that eats up a day and spits it out, so that they can live the same day again tomorrow. They still slept in the same bed, and talked to each other with the same unflinching familiarity of people who have spent years with each other, but the sleeps were silent and silently restless, as if the bed were half dangled over the precipice of a ravine, and their words were familiar but so imperceptibly different that the difference itself may as well have been familiar, as if their words had already fallen from the precipice and shattered on the rocks below. He knew what had changed between them, but he didn't. He wanted to bleed tears for it, but the change was not severe enough for that. Hikigaya Itsumi, and perhaps even himself, were never ones to hide what they were thinking. To anyone. Was that what had pulled them together? A member of the Military Police whose family had been members since well before he was born, and the daughter of a Wall Sina baker who snapped at anyone who so much as dared to remind her.

Fumiya saw it the moment he walked through the door of her father's shop. That Itsumi didn't want something more, but that she wanted something beyond anyone's right to give her, a life or a history, a passion or a freedom, taking flight and soaring far overhead, far beyond her fingertips, a flock of birds disappearing over to the top of humanity's walls. Like the sun behind the hill of Arisie. She'd often spoken about the walls too. Promised about dreams that fastened onto some distant, exotic corner of the world, close to everything and past that too. She even mentioned joining the Scout Regiment- a notion that had his heart imploding within his chest for that the girl he'd fallen so pathetically, head over heels in love with might really have a death wish. They were all empty words. Empty promises, empty dreams. Love gets in the way of all three of those things. They were too young to realize any such reality, and so they rushed, hurried, too fast for either of their father's wishes, and were married in the spring.

They still loved each other. He knew that, and felt it. Only a week before, Hikigaya Itsumi had woken up in the middle of the night, waking him up too. She hadn't realized. He could see her side of the bed, glistening with sweat in the impaling darkness of the cabin, the slightest taste of burning wax from the candle that extinguished itself as they slept, just in the air, like a dissipating nightmare over their heads. She'd turned over and sat up on the sheets as quietly as possible, thinking of him, of not waking him, even then. Fumiya had thought his wife might cry, but she hadn't. It was probably because her husband was there. He hadn't seen so much as a hint of tears- that the feat of crying was possible for his wife- for the longest time. Tears were merely an unnecessary. An inconvenience. Seeing them on Itsumi's warm cheeks, beset against the chestnut hair that hadn't seen itself realized in their children, would be like seeing fire in the sky. Something that shouldn't, couldn't, be. Her face was far too beautiful for tears.

But they still loved each other. He knew that, and felt it.

The sunset's walls weren't high enough to reach behind the cabin anymore. Hikigaya Itsumi glances up, feeling a sudden rush of cold wind over her exposed arms. The dress isn't like the dresses of the other women in Arisie. Most of them wear simple, grey frocks that might as well have no colour in them at all, with the way they weave seamlessly into the houses, the hill and the tributary of their new home. So different to the dresses and hats and petticoats she used to see arranged in the shop windows of the interior. Her father and her, then Fumiya and her, had not been wealthy, not well connected, but she catches the flightless looks from the women that see her in the few outfits they had enough room to bring with them. Whereas she might've been scoffed at for wearing these in Sina, here, in Wall Maria, she seems akin to luxury. The rouge sleeves, rouge, rouge running all the way down to her feet. The bottom hem had once caught the wind in a manner that was almost graceful. In Arisie, it was flat and still.

Itsumi does not like it. Everything about the place. Or more precisely, she does not like that she can't quite place why she doesn't like it. In Wall Sina, a burst of sun on a summer day was like a scrape of heaven scrambling across her cheek. In Arisie, the sensation of sun, rain, hall, sleet, is all the same on her cheek- a cold or hot or solid or sweltering nuisance that calls less from her than the bat of an eyelid. Sensation, all in all, has become less than a sensation since they arrived. Sometimes, she wondered if that, like so many other things, had also been stolen from her. But stolen by what? Arisie? The people? The hill? Perhaps if she dug with her fingernails, peeled and scratched at the dirt aroun their cabin until the fingernails had cracked and fallen away lifelessly, and the dirt was more a grimy pit of blood and spit than dirt, she would find what she was looking for. What she'd looked for, every day, with the same broken diligence, since they'd left. She looked for it in other places too. Itsumi might scratch her fingernails into their bedsheets, or into the skin of her husband's back when night came. When collapsing into each other seemed freeing, better, than collapsing in on themselves.

It baffled her that, more often than not, the motionless moments were what brought her closest to it. To a sensation. Like when she let herself sit, just sit in the chair at the back of their cabin, and read some of the books she'd managed to scramble with her, the pulp romances or the storybooks, like the dresses, like the feelings. The reminders.

Where's Fumiya? she thought absently to herself. No. She knew. This was the time of the day he'd decided that it helped to watch the sunset. She was fine with that. If it helped, then of course.

Where's...

Her hand clutched the fabric above her heart.

Where's... where's-

"Where's dad?"

The hem of her dress, the hem that wasn't graceful anymore, was being tugged. Hikigaya Itsumi turned around and saw her son looking at her with his big, round eyes.

"..."

"Momma? Where's dad?" he tugged her dress again, a little impatiently.

"... Sorry, um..."

She cursed herself and shifted around to face him, forcing her smile, the parenting smile, onto her lips. She took his miniscule fingers into her palm and stroked them, like she'd always done.

"Sorry, Hachi. I was miles away."

"Miles away? No you're not. You're right here." He tried to poke her, but she didn't let his fingers go.

"No. Of course not, you're right, I'm... I'm right here."

She opened her palm to look at the fingers. The tiny fingers. He lifted them to poke her again, but she stopped him, held them carefully in case they snapped, like bloodied bones from a carcass, and kissed them. They were delicate, even more than the kiss.

Itsumi was so quick to forget that she wasn't talking to her husband. Him and his son, Hikigaya Hachiman, were so clearly father and son it seemed almost moronic to comment on the resemblance. She could already see how his childish, pudgy face would develop and mature, how the jawline would become harder and the nose would get sharper. She could see that his hair would probably always be as messy and untameable as her husband's. In that sense, she didn't want Hachiman to grow up like his father. That, and the eyes. His eyes were still wide, curious, seeing but not understanding. Her husband's eyes were, put frankly, disgusting. She always made the joke that they looked like those of a dead fish. If her son's eyes ended up like Fumiya's, she would never forgive herself for falling in love with him.

She pulled her son a little closer and enjoyed the closeness much more than he did.

"Why is that no matter how many times I comb this stupid thin-"

"Momma! Stop touching my hair!" he complained, pulling away from her with much exaggeration.

She nearly laughed. "You and dad even speak the same."

"Well, I wanna speak to him. I don't wanna speak to you." The eight year old crossed his arms.

"Why's that? Have I done something wrong?"

"Yeah. You keep touching my ha-"

"Nothing else?"

He shook his head, suddenly nervous. "... Have I?"

"No, you silly boy. But... but tell me if I do something wrong, okay? I don't want to do something wrong."

The words were soft, like the fabric, the rouge of her dress. She'd noticed that her son liked the feel of this dress more than the others.

"Sure."

"Thank you."

"You're being weird again. You keep doing that, momma. Touching my hair and being weird. It's weird."

"Yeah. Momma's a rude weirdo. That's right, isn't it?"

He seemed confused at how to reply, and so didn't. The parenting smile hadn't left her face.

"So does Hachi just prefer his dad to rude weirdos, or do you have something you want to tell him?"

"Not tell. Show."

"What did you want to show him?"

"I'm not showing you. I'm going to show dad!"

"Of course."

"I'm going to show dad because... because... because."

"Just because?"

"Yeah. Because."

"Well, what if momma really really really wants to be shown it too?"

He considered this.

"I guess so. But... but only if you do what daddy did."

For some reason, he bit his lip when saying this. Itsumi frowned.

"What did daddy do, Hachi?"

"But if you don't know, then there's no point in showing!"

She slapped his head lightly. "An eight year old shouldn't be trying to be clever. Grow slower."

"What?"

"Nothing."

"... So can you tell me where dad is?"

"Sure."

"Thanks so so much momm-"

"But first, you have to show me too."

In a heartbeat, the eight year old became markedly less cheerful.

"... Can't I just show dad?"

"Why? Is it a big boy secret?"

"Uh... no. I don't think so."

"Is it just a secret, then?"

"I dunno. It's just... not a secret."

"So you should have no problem showing me, then?"

"... Are you telling me that it's a secret?"

"You should know. It's your secret."

"... I'm confused."

She shook her head. "Well... I think that if you didn't think it was a secret before you asked me where dad was, then it probably isn't? A secret's only a secret if someone doesn't want anyone else to know. And you want dad to know, don't you? What about me?"

"... I don't think it's a secret, momma."

"So maybe you could show me?"

"I... I guess."

"Go on then."

Hachiman stayed still for a moment, before turning around and walking back to the spot where he'd been playing. She'd turned her back, towards the cabin, and hadn't really been paying attention. Itsumi bit her lip. That was stupid. She promised herself that she would never stop paying attention.

He returned a moment later after picking something up from the ground. Her annoyance turned to curiosity when he didn't immediately reveal it.

"... Hachi?"

"..."

"Aren't you going to show me?"

"... Do you... do you promise that you'll do what dad did?"

"... What did dad do-"

"Promise! I'm not showing you unless you promise."

"… I promise."

His fingers unfurled, showing her at last.

It was a daisy chain. That was all. Just a couple of flowers removed from their place and strung up like a man in the gallows, a noose of innocent stems and petals. It was poorly made. Her son clearly hadn't know how to make them properly.

Neither did she. But they'd promised to learn. Her and Fumiya, for-

Her eyes clenched shut like a pounding fist.

"… You're not doing what dad did, momma."

"And what was that?" she repeated.

"…"

"Hachi… it… it looks very pretty. It's a nice daisy chain. Is that what dad did? Did he just say it's nice?"

He peered down at the chain. "I don't think that it's nice. I don't like making them."

"Wh- why would you make something if you didn't enjoy it?"

"… Daisy chains are for girls-"

"Hachi."

"… Because… because the last time you talked about…"

Itsumi remembered. It was after they'd bought their way through the gates, into Wall Rose. When for the first time in her life, she could see more trees and shrubs than she could see packed streets and throngs of people. Just trees and shrubs, on and on and on. She, her husband and their son had stayed deathly silent the moment they picked up the reigns, the wagon heavy behind them, lugging their necessities, the rips, the fragmented ties to their existence, their life, in the interior. Then, on the side of the road, she'd seen one of them. The beginning flourishes of a daisy, and then several more. Several more. Practically a field of them. Daisies, disappearing passed as they rode.

"Look. Daisies."

"…"

"I told her that I'd… that one day, we'd find some. Not the ones they sell on the stalls. Real ones, outside of Wall Sina, an- and we'd make a chain of…"

"…"

She looked at the daisy chain in her son's hand, and the memory was sharp. Sharper than it had ever been.

"I'm sorry, momma."

"…"

"I'm sorry. You said that it's not allowed to talk about her, but I showed it to dad and he-"

"Your dad was wrong."

"I- I'm sorry momma-"

"We agreed that we would never talk about…" she said to herself, forgetting that her son was there for a moment.

"Momma…"

"… What, Hachi?"

"… Why… why can't we talk abou-"

"That's… that's just the way it is, Hachi."

It was addressed to her as much as it was him.

"But-"

"But what?"

He shuffled his feet.

"But you…. you always say to ask if I don't understand, or if I want to know something-"

"Something's are better not to know."

"… But-"

"Hachi, you… just listen for a moment, okay?"

She pulled her son closer again, not as gently as last time.

"What… what happened back at Wall Sina is adult stuff. I don't ca- just this once, you shouldn't listen to your father. It's not something that a child needs to know about. It's like… it's like asking about the-"

"The walls? I wanted to ask about them to-"

"Yes. Like the walls. It's something that's just for adults. So, just… just go back to playing, okay? Go and play."

"But what about da-"

"Don't worry. I'm going to talk to your dad now."

"You're… you're going to show him for me?"

"… Yes, Hachi. I'm going to show him for you."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"You promise?"

"Of course."

"But you promised earlier and-"

"I promise, Hachi."

She stood up, and the rouge dress fell back down to her feet. Her parenting smile was as strong as ever. Her expression was not.

"Give me the chain, Hachi."

He stared up at her, and briefly it seemed like he wouldn't do what she'd said, but then the flowers were offered up to her. Once it was taken, his hand withdrew like the snap of a whip.

"Th- thanks, momma."

"You're welcome, Hachi. Now go and be a good boy, okay?"

The child dashed back to the spot he'd been playing, about twenty yards from the cabin. Itsumi began by walking calmly, but once he was far enough away, she felt the spit of anger hissing at her heels.

"We agreed," she whispered to herself. "We agreed that we would never talk about it."

The daisy chain lay crushed between her fingers.

Hikigaya Fumiya was leant against the front wall of the cabin, right where she knew that he'd be. His eyes were strained on the coming dusk. Not her, the dusk. The sun was all but dead in its grave behind the hill, just like them, and everyone else in Arisie, and he was still looking.

"Fumiya."

"…"

"We agreed."

"… Agreed what?"

She dropped the daisy chain to the wooden floor.

"You know what. We weren't going to talk about it. Especially not to Hachi."

"…"

"Fucking look at me, Fumiy-"

"Itsumi."

"What?"

"Over there."

Suddenly, he was pointing to the foot of the hill. She followed the line of his finger, but all she saw was the thinning grass covering it, the houses caught in its darkened blaze and the sky spilling its light onto it, making it drip with a golden blur.

"I don't care about the fucking sunset-"

"Not there. The road."

She looked again, and paused.

There were two riders on horseback, moving into the shadow of Arisie as they had a season ago. The figures were obscured by the light behind them. She scoffed.

"Don't change the subject, Fumiya. They're just more visitors-"

"They don't' have any supplies with them."

"It doesn't matter-"

"It's not just two of them."

Her husband was right. Another rider appeared. Another. Another. Five riders, making their procession into the village.

"… They're still just visitors-"

Fumiya reached forward and grabbed her arm. Instinctively, her arm went to prize him off.

"What are you doing-"

"Itsumi."

She froze. There was an ice in his tone. An ice and a panic that couldn't be reckoned with.

"What… what-"

"Itsumi. You have to do what I say."

"What are you-"

"No. You have to do what I say. Go and get Hachiman. Get on the horses and run."

"I don't-"

"It's the Military Police."

The ice in his voice spread, building and building, straight from his veins and into her blood. Her eyes fell back onto the foot of the hill. Now that the riders were in the shadow, without the sun rushing behind them, she could see the formation. The rifles cradled in their arms. The dark brown uniforms and, though they were too far away, the insignia of the unicorn, singed onto their backs and their sleeves and her thoughts when she woke up sweating in the night.

"… How-"

"It doesn't matter-"

"How are they so far from Sin-"

"They're owned, Itsumi. They're practically mercenaries-"

"Fumiy-"

"Stop."

He pulled her closer as if she were their son, his dead fish eyes as firm as steel.

"They're here. They've come for me, not you, not Hachi. I'm the one who betrayed them. Not you. Me. If you go now, they won't follow you."

"Fumi-"

"Stop. Just this once, you have to listen to me."

She twisted her head desperately. Her husband, the riders, her husband, the riders.

"They'll… they'll-"

"I know. Run."

"…"

"Itsumi-"

"-I love yo-"

"Don't get sentimental now, for fuck's sake. You need to leave."

"…"

Hikigaya Fumiya did not kiss her, or tell her that he loved her back. There wasn't enough time for that. Instead, he pushed her away, off the porch and onto the grass.

"Leave-"

"Fumiya-"

"Shut up and go-"

"Alright. Al… alright."

She blinked, not quite processing what was happening, not quite knowing what she was saying.

"Alright, I- I'm going."

"Good."

Their eyes met for just a heartbeat. Itsumi opened her mouth, prepared to spill every feeling, every sensation, every moment that she'd been with this stupid man in front of her, all at once.

Then, she pulled her lips together, and ran away from him. A wave of rouge, gone, just as he thought she would never leave.

Hikigaya Fumiya stood on the porch to their cabin, the sun nearly set.

His mind was telling him something. It was metallic and nonsensical, screamed out and only vaguely heard from the other side of the world. In a split second, he felt numbed. Splintered. Taken from a whole and left as a piece that could hardly be connected again.

"… Hachiman…"

In the distance, behind the cabin, he heard the faint sound of hooves and the even fainter sound of confused voices. Voices that he recognized. Next was the sound of them fading, and then quiet, the quiet his family forgot upon leaving.

The metallic scream came once more, and then left for good.

He snapped back to his senses. The riders. Look.

He did, and they were close. The five were arranged like the spots on a playing card of the same number- two at the front, one in the middle, and two at the back. They had ridden through the main body of houses, straight through the bones of Arisie, and were approaching the bridge across the tributary. Close. Closer to the cabin than they should ever have been able to get.

Hikigaya Fumiya inhaled and forced himself to lean against the wall again. He dug his hands into his pocket. Nothing. Nothing to defend himself. He'd brought his rifle when they ran- the one designated to him by his station, the one that the riders themselves were carrying. He couldn't go back into the cabin and get it now. They were near enough to see him, and to see that he was looking at them. What good would a gun do against five of them?

He waited. Waited until they'd drawn up to the cabin. Until he could see their faces, and the uniforms that made them all the same to him.

They stared at each other. Fumiya, and the riders, hands close to their rifles once their mounts came to a halt. He could see it in their eyes. They knew exactly who he was. The one closest to him, at the front right of the formation, was skinny with short and cropped black hair, and his mouth was parted as if he couldn't believe that they'd found him so easily. And they had. The one to the left of him was enormous, with muscles the size of tree stumps, and gritted teeth that churned his face and somehow made his thickened features more grotesque than they would've been normally. The two behind them were younger, one a boy and the other a girl, the latter of them as twitchy and uncertain as her horse, and the former pale against the dappled brown coat of his own.

The one in the middle shifted his weight and jumped down to the grass. It was a silent order. The other four followed it without the hint of a hesitation, pulling their rifles free as they did so. The leader, the only one not wearing the uniform of the Military Police, signalled at them to stay where they were, and then moved towards the cabin, towards the porch, towards him.

Fumiya hand's trembled in his pockets. His heart beat like it was trying to break free.

He recognized the man now stood on the bottom step of the porch. The man wearing a knee length coat and leather jacket, with an expensive looking ring on his finger. The things people said about him, the whispers amongst the ranks of the Military Police when he'd been a part of them, were different every time, but identical every time in their warning. Their violence. He'd only seen him once before, from a distance. The newfound proximity was by no means welcome.

What was he doing here?

All of a sudden, the man began to grin, showing him teeth more stained and yellow than those of the horses.

"Hikigaya Fumiya?"

His breath hitched in his throat.

The man tilted his head to oneside.

"Cat got your tongue, huh?"

"…"

"You don't need to worry about it -"

"Yes."

"... Yes to wha-"

"T- that's me. I'm… I'm Hikigaya Fumiya."

The man grinned a little wider.

"Thanks for the clarification, but it wouldn't have made any difference otherwise."

Fumiya removed his hands from his pockets, showing them they were empty.

"I'm unarmed. You don't need to-"

"We don't need to do anything, Hikigaya Fumiya."

The man took the last few steps onto the porch. His voice was deep and raspy. Unpleasant.

"Do you know why we're here, Hikiga-"

Behind them, there was movement. The rider at the front left of the formation lifted his rifle, cocked it, aimed it straight at Fumiya. He lifted his arms instinctively, held them in front of his face.

"We should kill him right now, sir."

"W- wait, I, I told you I was unarme-"

"Lower your weapon, sergeant."

The soldier looked at his commander, but kept the sights of his rifle fixed.

"Sir, there's no need for us to hesita-"

"You think so?"

"… Our assignment was to look for the fugitive and deserter named Hikigaya Fumiya and to kill on sigh-"

"Who are you, sergeant?"

"… Excuse me sir, I don't follow-"

"I mean, sergeant, who are you? What's your name?"

"… Darris Myle, sir-"

"And what is your rank?"

"… Sergeant of the Military Police, Squadron C for Ehrmich District-"

"And what is my name and rank, Darris Myle?"

"…"

"Speak up, sergeant."

"… Jon Kohner, commander of the First Interior Squad of the Military Polic-"

"That much is true, sergeant Darris Myle, but y'know, I hear a lot of rumors these days. A lot of them. What do you think those rumors are about?"

"I… I'm not sure sir-"

"They're rumors about the kind of people that I know. The kind of people that I'm connected to. That I really work for."

"…"

"So… what was it… Darris Myle?" he drawled. "If you have a grievance with the way I conduct an assignment, I suggest that you take it up with my employers."

"… Yes sir."

"Lower your weapon, sergeant."

The man, Jon Kohner, was only satisfied once the rifle had been put away, and once the enormous man who'd held it up suddenly looked decidedly out of place. A boy shoved unceremoniously onto a horse, his uniform too old for him, hardly capable of lifting a hand. Jon Kohner, however, was difficult to imagine as ever being a boy. The whole time, his grin had remained stoic, especially as the threat passed was borne on his tongue. At a closer look, Fumiya could tell there was something or other wrong with his face. Not in it's asymmetrically, or the slight cuts along the cheek and the neck that he'd probably paid back ten times fiercer and ten times deeper. There was just something wrong with it. The kind of face that made you sick to so much as look upon.

Kohner's attention found its way back to Fumiya, and the repulsive grin, teeth, features, were no easier to stomach.

"I apologize for the interruption, Hikigaya."

"…"

"Now, our good little sergeant here seems to have introduced me already, but for the sake of formality: my name is Jon Kohner. I am the commander of the First Interior Squad of the Military Police. Me and my associates here, from Squadron C of Ehrmich District, were sent on official business of the crown-"

Fumiya snorted. He couldn't help himself.

Kohner's eyebrow flickered up. "Something amusing about this, Hikigaya?"

"Nothing, it's just… the crown? Don't bullshit that the crown was involved in any of this."

"I wasn't."

"What do you mea-"

"Please do not be misled, Hikigaya."

"… Misled-"

"Misled that you have any discernible rights in this situation. You're a fugitive on the run, and we are here to apprehend you. In fact, how about we conduct this in silence, save for when I specifically ask you to talk?"

"…"

"Good. Now, as I was sayin-"

"Didn't your friend over there already say what your real assignment was? To kill me, wasn't it?"

Kohner stared at him. Behind him, a bead of sweat began to fall from the sergeant's forehead.

"Hikigaya Fumiya. On behalf of the Military Police, and in service to the royal line of Fritz, I hereby arrest you on suspicion of desertion and-"

"I thought I asked you to stop bullshittin-"

"You want me to stop bullshitting?"

Kohner stepped closer, his grin dropping, until he was directly in front of him. Fumiya bit his tongue, but stared right back.

"Is that you want? For me to tell the truth?"

"…"

"Well then, Hikigaya Fumiya… how about this for truth. We were not sent on the authority of the Military Police. We were not sent on the authority of the royals. We were sent by those who, to all intents and purposes, are running Wall Sina. They have decided that you are to die, and they have sent me here to carry out that aim. When the times comes that you will die, very presently, I will not hesitate."

He lifted his finger. The one wearing the ring. With the thumb of his other hand, he pressed down on its left side, releasing a latch that clicked open and revealed a tiny blade, like a sharpened corkscrew.

He raised it to Hkigaya Fumiya's face. It glinted in the light.

"Does that clear things up for you?"

"… Then why aren't I dead yet?"

"Because me employers also asked that I find out just how much you knew."

Fumiya kept his hands nailed firmly to his side. He wouldn't move. He wouldn't even blink. He wouldn't give the man the satisfaction.

"How about we start there, Hikigaya?"

"…"

"Just how much do you know?"

"… I know that you shouldn't be here."

"Excuse me?"

"Jon Kohner… when I was in the Military Police, I heard that name many times. You even assigned me once, on… how did you put it? 'Business of the crown'?"

His grin only steepened. "Yes. That is the official name."

"Yes… but I was only a sergeant. Just like your men back there. I had no reason to even see the commander of the First Interior Squad, especially when we all knew what your real job was-"

"Indulge me."

"… You're their enforcer. Their main henchman."

"Correct. Now, tell me something more interestin-"

"As far as I understand, the enforcer is only used in… in desperate situations? The dirty jobs that need to be done above any other. So… so why has the main henchman been sent so far from Wall Sina, all the way to this shithole, for a second-rate job like dealing with a fugitive?"

"You tell me," he whispered.

Fumiya breathed in deeply, steadying himself.

"It must mean that… it must mean that what I know really is important. Much more than the military made it out to be."

"I'm struggling to see where you're going with thi-"

"Something that important… would be useful for me to keep to myself."

Kohner's eyes narrowed down to slits.

"Hikigaya Fumiya… I'd suggest that you tell me what you know, and quickl-"

"No. It's the only thing keeping me alive, right?"

"… You're not alone here, are you Hikigaya?"

"…"

"You have a family, don't you? A nice little wife, and a nice little son too if I remember right-"

"They're not here."

"Perhaps not. I'd think you a fool if they were. But I can find them, can I not?"

"… They… they'll be miles away by the time you finish with me-"

"Oh no. I can make this very quick, if I want to."

The ring came a little closer. Right underneath Fumiya's right eye.

"… There wouldn't be a point in trying to find them."

"Really?"

"Yes. I… I didn't tell them anything. All I told them was that we had to leave-"

"A wise choice. Again, I'd think you were a fool, endangering them with that kind of information. But they're not your only family, are they?"

His body fell totally still.

"Back in Wall Sina… we have something of yours. I'm told that she really does miss her-"

"What have you done to her?"

"…"

"What have you done to my fucking daughter, you piece of shi-"

Before he could finish, Kohner's knee lodged itself into his abdomen. He doubled up in pain, collapsing to his knees on the porch. Kohner was on him in an instant, the glinting screw pressed up to his neck.

"I could make her suffer in so many ways, Hikigaya Fumiya. I've done it so many times. Tortured someone. I know every single way to make a person scream, or cry, or give up. I've broken men in two, right in front of me. They've begged me to die, time and time again. But y'know what, Hikigaya Fumiya? This will be the first time I've ever had to torture a child."

"…"

"It would save you a lot of trouble to tell me what you know. I won't have to spend as much time killing you- it can be nice and quick and easy. If you tell me now, we might even find it in ourselves to spare your daughter. It would be shame to cut a bird's wings before it's flown, wouldn't it?"

"…"

"Answer me, Hikigaya Fumiya."

He closed his eyes.

He couldn't say what compelled him to do it. To close his eyes from Kohner, from Arisie, from the weapon at his neck. A memory, perhaps. A sensation.

But he felt…

He felt clear.

For the first time since they'd left Wall Sina, he knew what he had to do.

Hikigaya Fumiya opened his eyes.

"I… I… want to believe that my daughter is alive."

"…"

"Bu- but for all I know, my daughter is already dead. And… I can't… if I tell you this, then I… then I betray all of humanity."

"…"

"You can kill me now. I'm not telling you anythin-"

Hikigaya Fumiya didn't have time to finish the sentence. The ring had already been dragged across his throat. Blood spurted from the wound instantly, but his eyes blurred over too fast for him to see it. He felt his body imploding, falling in on itself, and he felt his face crash down to the wooden floor of the porch, his face, his cheek numbed to all and every sensation.

His sight was what gave out last. Just before something was snuffed out, snapped at the back of his skull, he thought he saw the sun fall behind the hill of Arisie. He'd seen it set every day since he and his family came to the village.

He also thought he saw red. A pool of red, all around him. Close to rouge, close to the hem of a dress disappearing behind the cabin. Then, he saw nothing at all.

Jon Kohner grunted. The front of his jacket was covered in the contents of Hikigaya Fumiya's neck. He knew from many years of experience that it bled the most when he cut them there.

He pressed the button on the side of his ring, retracted the blade and turned around to see the riders behind him staring at the corpse on the porch. The woman, whose name he hadn't bothered to learn, had dropped her rifle. The man with cropped hair had remained exactly where he was, but Kohner could tell he was stunned. There was a glazed look in his eye, like his head was refusing to accept what had happened.

Darris Myles was looking anywhere but the porch.

"You… you just killed him…"

Kohner rolled his eyes. "You were practically begging me to kill him earlier. Make your fucking mind up."

"But… but he hadn't told you what you wante-"

"I know full well when a person is telling me the truth. He wouldn't have told me anything, regardless what I did. People like that are dangerous. The best way to get around them is to make it quick."

"… B- but what about the family-"

"Like I said, he was telling the truth. He didn't tell them anything. There's no point killing them if they don't know anything."

"…"

"Is that all?' Kohner glanced at the others.

They said nothing.

He stretched his shoulders, before walking down from the porch and over to his horse. In a split second, he was back on the saddle, and signaling for the Military Police members to do the same.

"Y'know… if you look at this one way, I'd say it's a learning curve."

"…"

"That's what happens to the people who betray the Yukinoshitas. I'd suggest you heed the warning."

Kohner slapped the reigns, pivoting his horse back in the direction of the bridge, of the hill out of Arisie.

"… Commander?"

"Yes, sergeant Myles?"

"… Do you know?"

"Know what? I hate it when people say shit like that."

The sergeant flinched, but was not dissuaded.

"Do you… do you know why you're here? Why what that man knew was so important?"

"…"

"Commande-"

"Shut the fuck up sergeant, or I'll put your head on a spike and feed the rest of your body to the titans."

For the ride that followed, sergeant Darris Myles did not feel the need to talk.