Chapter Text
“My job is to scatter you all, to be tortured and slain,” is the last thing Izuku hears. He’s freaking out. He's only thirteen! He doesn't want to die!
Izuku sees his classmates’ panicked faces, and registers their desperate screaming. Then a wall of purple smog engulfs him, and he feels nothing.
He wakes up to a gentle rocking motion and low, mourning murmurs. He tries to sit up, but winces and stops, clutching his aching head. He pulls his hand away and it’s bloody. Not good. Laying back against the wooden surface he’s been propped up on, he looks around. Unfamiliar people are huddled around him, and in the distance he can hear screaming. His eyes flick around, taking in the drawn faces, the silent tears, and the blood-red sky. He’s on a… boat? Barge? Crammed with dirty, bloody people packed together like sardines.
He is... confused.
This is a bit of a perplexing situation, and he has no idea where he is. Now that he thinks about it, he’s not quite certain who he is.
That seems like the more pressing matter to work out, at the moment.
They’re getting off the boat, backs bent and cowering. He sees that as they get off, they make sounds at a man in a light brown jacket when he asks them a question. The sounds are unfamiliar, and aren’t how he feels they’re supposed to be, but after a minute of listening and slowly getting further up the line, he thinks he’s worked out that the man must be asking for a… name .
Of course, it comes out in an odd way he doesn’t feel fits, but he does realize that he will have to give this man a… name … that fits himself.
He vaguely pulls at his blood-matted green hair and lists sideways for a moment as he considers what his name might be.
He knows he has one of course, because he must have one if he wants to get off the boat. And he’s not quite sure why, but the stench of blood-piss-fear-MOURNING that permeates the boat turns his stomach in dangerous ways.
As the line moves, he tries to shape a couple of the names he’s heard so far from the others, to see if they might be his also, but as he tugs his green (green?) hair he thinks slowly that none of them really fit him at all.
This is slightly worrisome. He needs to give the man a name if he wants to get off the boat. And suddenly he’s in front of the man, and the man looks down on him with a raised brow and asks-
“Wie ist dein Name?”
And the word that falls out of his mouth feels unfamiliar and wistful at the same time, and the man blinks then shrugs and makes marks on his (paper?) thing and waves him forward. He blinks, and tugs his hair nervously.
What the hell is a ‘Deku’, anyways?
Deku is a bit disenchanted with this whole “join the military” business. Because of course they offer much better food and accommodations than the Trostian red-light district did, he hadn’t thought that there would be so much… yelling. Even his night job in the red-light isn’t quite this vocal, and that’s saying something.
Deku got off the boat into an unfamiliar world a year and a half ago, and did his best to get a handle on this whole ‘completely helpless with what’s going on around him’ business. And when some of the Garrison came round a week after what everyone was calling the ‘Fall’, hauling off anyone they could for conscription, Deku was passed over because they assumed he was simple.
Really, he was just very confused.
He ends up with the Trostian mafia completely by accident because, really, his luck is just that good . Apparently his big green doe-eyes are the most adorably innocent thing on this side of Rose, which makes him an excellent interrogator and occasional assassin. And when the boss has no one he needs answers out of and no one he wants dead, Deku meanders over to the red-light brothel where he puts his big green eyes and chapped lips to other uses and makes enough coin for some dinner tomorrow.
It’s nice, really. The routine of it.
But of course, some jackass blabbed that he wasn’t simple, but actually pretty damn smart with a shaky grip on the language, and so the Garrison dragged him here. To the military.
Fuck, he is not good with authority.
So apparently he’s a bit of a natural at this whole ODM racket, which is nice. The written classes? The reading in general? Not so much. Back in Trost he didn’t have to worry about being able to read or write much, so he sorta-maybe just copies off of the people who can. There are two others in his corp who’re from the less-savory flavor of Rose, basically illiterate just like he is.
The three of them talk sometimes. It’s nice.
Everyone is simultaneously horrified and fascinated when they find out his hometown is listed as Shiganshina, because the boat he woke up on was coming from Shiganshina after the Titans broke through.
He wonders who he was before the boat. Deku thinks he must have hit his head, because he remembers the blood matted in his green hair. He’s heard stories of people who hit their head and went a little funny afterward.
Deku, late at night, stares up at the ceiling and wonders if he had a family. If this hypothetical family is either dead in a Titan’s stomach or was on the boat with him and he just… never knew it. He feels horribly guilty because if his family was devoured and he lived, then he should have carried his memories of them further, should have carried them onward. But he can’t because he’s pretty sure that any family that his body might have had isn’t really his anyway.
He doesn’t even know his real name.
Sometimes, his morbidity considers that he, Deku, killed whoever he was before the boat and took his place, sliding roughly into a meat sack that wasn’t his own.
But those are very late-night thoughts.
Deku discovers that he is inexplicably, almost inhumanly stronger and faster than the other cadets. He never really noticed before because he was never really compared to the others around him, but in a military training camp it is becoming more and more obvious how far he physically outstrips them. His corp is made up almost exclusively (minus himself and the other two) of middle-upper class citizens who have their eyes set on the Military Police, on the cushy job benefits of living and working in the Interior. They’re upper-crust in Rose, sure, but the safety of two walls is apparently significantly more attractive than just the one and the “urchins” that the refugees apparently are.
Deku gets a pass because of how “sweet” and “cute” and “innocent” he apparently looks, and he thinks it ironic and an unintentional tip of the hat to his red-light skills, though he doesn’t sleep with any of them. It’s the military, for Sina’s sake, he’s not about to throw around his casual-sex skills here.
So, he had casual sex with one of the other two unfortunates. Their name is Lisse. Deku’s not quite sure how he feels about this new development. He has assured Lisse that he has no interest in them romantically and tells them with a wink to come find him if they’re feeling pent-up again, perhaps in exchange for his cleaning duties for a week. Lisse tells him that drives a hard bargain, but that they would not mind continuing this conversation at a later date.
Deku thinks he may have made a friend.
There’s a training accident with the ODM gear. Deku could have stopped it, could have-
Lisse was caught in one of those idiotic MP-wannabe bastards’ fancy maneuvers and shredded by the cables.
They had to take off their arm. They’re sending them home.
They have no home.
Deku painstakingly copies out the name of the Trostian brothel he sometimes works at and presses the paper into their remaining hand, whispering that the workers there were treated very well and for them to say Deku sent them. He said that it wasn’t a noble career path but it put coin in hands.
Hand.
They smile sharply, and kiss him on the cheek. “Beat those rich kids into the ground for me, Deku,” they say. “And then give the Titans hell.”
He grins back, devilish with only a hint of wobble to betray his despair. “Course, Lisse.” he says shakily. “Who do you take me for?”
They laugh.
And then Lisse is gone.
Deku graduates early, fast-tracking through a two-year program and graduating at sixteen, top of his class.
He doesn’t want a cushy job with the MPs, though. And he doesn’t want to be a petty patrolman with the Garrison.
That year, the top of the class registers for the Scouting Regiment, whose motto is to “dedicate your hearts to go beyond -”
(Well, plus ultra, right?)
The Scouting Regiment is… weird. And full of crazy people who do odd things.
Deku loves it.
His first expedition goes well, and he solo-kills five Titans and saves the life of one of his comrades. When they return, he is assigned to Squad Levi and is ecstatic . He’ll grudgingly admit that he has a bit of a hero-worship thing for Squad Levi. They’re just so… so above it all.
But then, of course, his first day with them and his worship is completely annihilated, because these bastards aren’t above a damn thing, but he loves them better for it. Two or three relatively successful expeditions later and he’s saved their lives and they’ve saved his so many times that their squad is just one big life debt.
The first time Captain Levi tells Deku that his cleaning’s “not horrible,” Deku cries, because this is the highest praise any soldier can ever be given in the Scouting Regiment. The others clap enthusiastically as he sobs into Petra’s shoulder.
Then an expedition almost goes very, very wrong, and Deku does something very, very strange.
Has this green lightning business always been here?
So, he’s got some freaky-ass strength enhancement shit. And there’s green lightning involved if he really really busts his ass with it.
His squad was surrounded, and Gunther was out of gas, Petra had a broken arm, Oulo was concussed, Eld broke his ankle, and Levi’s gear was shot. They were surrounded, eight fifteen-meters and an abnormal who was bouncing off trees.
So Deku did what Deku does best.
He went goddamn mother-fucking plus ultra.
Levi agreed that they would tell absolutely zero people about what happened in what was henceforth known as The Plus Ultra Incident. Not Hanji, not Erwin, and certainly not the government.
Deku practiced in seclusion, and Squad Levi helped. If he ever wanted to master this power, he would need to work for it.
And he couldn’t master shit if he was locked up in some science basement waiting to be dissected.
Once Squad Levi is healed up and ready to be back in the game, Deku immediately breaks four fingers on his dominant hand in the most mundane way possible. (He got them shut in a door, can you imagine? A renowned member of Squad Levi getting his hand stuck in a door and breaking four fingers. What a joke.)
But he assures the rest of his squad (by which he means the Captain, who is a worrywart at heart) that he’ll be fine, resting up at the Trost headquarters and sitting out this expedition. He knows how eager they are to get out of the walls, so he tells them to go, and that he’ll just wait this one out.
He knows Squad Levi doesn’t like leaving people behind, but he doesn’t want to drag them down.
So he tells them to go.
And the next day, the Colossal appears, just like it did five years ago. He hears the screaming, sees the rubble of a hole being kicked through the wall, and his gear’s already on, broken fingers be damned.
It’s a nightmare out there, the advance guards are already down, he’s got Cadets being slaughtered, the evacuation is slow as shit, what the hell is going on back there, and people are seeing his Scouting cloak and lighting up like they’re already saved and he can’t save them . He doesn’t know urban combat like he knows the forests and the plains, he’s not enough, he’s taking them down like they’re made of cardboard but they just keep coming, and all he can hear is teeth snapping closed and the crunch of bone, the slow swallow of limp flesh-
He kills some more to make himself feel better, but abruptly realizes that he doesn’t feel much better. There are cadets, kids really, only a year younger than me- screaming and dying around him, and the only thing he can do is slaughter more Titans in their name.
Then he thinks to himself, hey, wait a minute, who’s the ranking officer here? Trost is- is lost, (don’t think about it, don’t think about it-) we all know that, so who’s going to call retreat? What’s going on with the evacuation? So he wheels around and starts carving a path toward where civilians are supposed to be funneling through, being mindful of his gas usage.
And when he gets in sight of the gate and sees a rich bastard yammering on about his cart, blocking the path and damming up the people, all he sees is red.
Mikasa isn’t quite certain what just happened, but she was about to give the merchant hell about what he was doing and a green blur just did it for her, delivering the most solid verbal smackdown she’s ever heard. And she’s certainly never seen a merchant move as fast as that one did to get something done.
Next thing she knows, there’s no more people, and the evacuation is complete. The green soldier turns to her, and she sees the Wings of Freedom on his cloak, but before she can ask he answers.
“Scouts aren’t here. I’m technically supposed to be on medical leave, but I wasn’t about to sit on my ass while the fucking Wall was being kicked in. Come on, cadet, we’ve gotta sound the retreat,” he says roughly, and she nods and salutes. He grins, a sharp, broken thing, and zips away. Mikasa follows close behind, and together they head for the carnage.
Every group they pass the Scout screams, “ Retreat, retreat! Back over the Wall, soldiers! Retreat!” and every group near about sobs in relief. Or is already sobbing.
But when they reach the biggest group left, what Mikasa sees is the 104th, the Scout slows, and slams down feet-first on the rooftops beside them.
“C’mon, we gotta go,” he says. “Job’s not done. What’s the holdup?” and when he hears that they’re near about out of gas, certainly without enough to get over the Wall, he nods. “Yeah, this’s a shitty situation, Cadets. And I can see that you’ve lost comrades. But you gotta listen to me,” he says, and takes a step forward, green eyes blazing. “ Job’s not done. We’re gonna head for HQ to resupply, and I’m gonna help you get there. I know all you wanna do right now is mourn your people, but this isn’t the time.” his eyes soften a little. “You’re gonna honor their sacrifices by living to the next day, and the next, and you’re gonna carry them forward with you. There’ll be a time for crying, when we’re set to see another sunrise. But if we die here, if we give up here, that means that they die for nothing. Do you understand, Cadets? I need you to pick yourselves up and hold your blades high for the comrades who can’t.”
He glares, and steps forward again. The 104th’s backs straighten, and eyes harden.
“ You got that, soldiers?! ” he yells.
“YES, SIR!” they scream back together. The Scout grins manically.
“Get straight to HQ, soldiers, and don’t stop for nothing! Your objective is to keep moving forwards , do you understand me?!”
“YES, SIR!”
“Don't worry about killing Titans, I’ve got that bit! You all are gonna use your gas smart and dodge, and you’re gonna KEEP MOVING FORWARD! ”
“ YES, SIR! ”
“ FORWARD!”
And she can’t see Eren, and Armin doesn’t look too good, and there aren’t as many cadets here as those that arrived, but by Sina, Mikasa’s going forward.
Deku is exhausted, and his hand fucking hurts like hell, and he’s nearbout out of gas, but he’s not about to leave these cadets behind. So he guards the flanks, and as the girl with the red scarf and a blond kid who looks kinda horsey blaze the path towards HQ, Deku slices down any Titans coming near these kids. And damn it, scarf girl’s gas hisses out and she tumbles, but when the group starts to flag he yells-
“ Keep moving, soldiers, I’ve got her! Keep moving!” and they speed up again. He watches as they pass him. Sina, he hopes they make it. He drops down by scarf girl and holds a hand out to lift her up off her ass.
“Job’s not done, soldier,” he says. “We’re gonna loot some corpses for gas and then we’re gonna get to HQ. On your feet,” and he watches as she takes his hand and rolls her shoulders.
“Yes, sir,” she says, tone dead. He scans the street, and spots a pile of discarded gear in a crater where a body laid.
“I can see you’re missing someone, soldier,” Deku says as he picks his way over to the gear. “And that you’re ready to lay down. But if you die here then your someone dies, really dies, with you. We’re gonna keep moving, soldier. You ready?”
Her back straightens a little. “Yes, sir,” she replies, firmer this time, and reaches down with him to replace the gas.
“A third in these tanks,” he says. “That’ll be enough for us to kill us a couple bastards on our way to the others. Job’s not done yet. Let’s fly,” and he’s ready to zip up when a ten-meter comes bumbling around a corner. “Hey, lookie here, first customer. You ready, soldier?” and she nods, fingers tightening around her blade grips.
But before either of them can move, a fifteen-meter comes hurtling around a corner to sock the ten-meter in the face, throwing it back. It then processes to stomp on its neck like it’s squishing a bug, then roars, loud and deafening. Then starts splashing around in the ten-meter’s innards, spreading them over the road like icing on a cake.
“Well, shit,” Deku remarks. “That’s certainly something you don’t see every day. C’mon, soldier. We’ll leave that friendly little fucker to do its good work. We’ve got your friends to go after.”
Scarf girl looks a little freaked out, both by the fifteen-meter abnormal and Deku’s blasé response to it. But she rallies, nods again, and they speed off toward HQ.
Mikasa’s kind of freaking out, but she decides to ignore what just happened in favour of cutting down Titans on her way to the 104th. The (probably insane) Scout beside her is focused, cutting a path toward the hive like a man on a mission. His green hair seems to have escaped its low ponytail, and is whipping around his face in a way that has to be annoying, but he doesn’t even blink at it.
They crash through the windows simultaneously, glass shattering across the wood floor. The others from the 104th look up at them, startled, then relieved.
“Report,” the Scout says. “What’s the situation?”
And Armin explains what’s going on in the storeroom and his plan for getting past it.
“Excellent, one problem.” the Scout says. “We still gotta worry about the ones outside clawing their way in. So scarf girl- my bad,” he says, turning to her. “what’s your name, doll?”
“...Mikasa,” she says blankly.
“-Mikasa here and I will need to be outside thinning the herd. So you’re gonna need two extra blade-wielders-”
And a deafening roar sounds outside, and the Scout rushes to a shattered window to look outside.
“Ah, hell yeah!” he cheers. “Mikasa, remember that abnormal who was beating Titan ass earlier? Yeah, he’s back. So y’all only need one extra blade-wielder. I’m gonna help out our Berserker here.” and, with a jaunty two-finger salute, he jumps out the window in a blur of motion and starts slicing down the Titans scrabbling on the walls.
Everyone’s sort of stunned for a moment, but Armin kicks them into gear and they get ready to storm supply.
Deku’s kinda having fun, honestly. The Berserker doesn’t seem interested in eating him, which is nice, and there’s lots of Titans in a pretty small area, so he’s racking up solo kills to brag about to the rest of Squad Levi, and there really isn’t anyone around to see him, so he can let loose a little with his lightning.
Little green shocks of energy are running over his body, his reflexes are sharper, his movements even more fluid, and the strength behind his sword swings slices them through skin like a hot knife through butter.
He gets to let loose a little.
He has one quick close call, nearabout missing an abnormal leaping to bite his cable, but the Berserker tackles it out of the way and he carries through the motion, calling out thanks to the Titan who probably just saved his life. (Which is a little weird, now that he thinks about it.)
He gets lost in his motions so thoroughly that he looks and yelps to see that the Berserker is pinned to a building, missing its arms and chunks of its legs, mouth lolling as the other Titans gnawed on it.
“Hey, fuck off!” he yells, charging forward to defend his newly-minted comrade. He’s a blur of death that’s come to destroy, and he plays his part admirably, slaughtering the pesky little bastards chewing on his ally. “You okay, big guy?” he calls, from a safe distance (he’s not stupid ).
The Berserker lets out some kind of low, rumbly moan and falls flat on its face. Deku blinks, and squints at whatever weird shit is happening at its neck. Then a whole ass person flops outta there, cadet uniform and all, and Deku zips down there like nobody’s business.
“Hey, kid, you alright?” he asks urgently, hands on the kid’s shoulders. What he really wants to know is what the fuck just happened, but he figures that it’d be poor taste to open with that. The kid blinks dopily, and his head lolls forward to rest on Deku’s shoulder. “You gotta say something, kid. I’m gonna be honest, I’m a little out of my depth here.”
The kid mumbles something unintelligible, and his eyes slide closed. “Ah, fuck!” Deku’s gonna admit it, he’s kinda freaking out here.
But the kid doesn’t reply.
Eren’s vision is sliding open, fuzzy white blobs superimposed over his field of sight. The last thing he remembers is the sky before teeth clamped down over his arm and then…
Nothing.
He blinks, and his eyes slide over to focus blearily on a fluttering, blood-spattered Wings of Freedom insignia set on a shifting green backdrop.
...Heaven?
His head lolls to the side and he sees Armin clutching one of his arms and Misaka standing slightly in front and to the side, knuckles white around her blade-grips. Over the roar of blood rushing through his ears he hears the (Scout?) in front of him shouting something, voice cutting in and out over the buzzing in his ears.
The Scout turns to him and he hears the muffled question, “you’re human, right?”
And he’s completely baffled, which surely shows on his face. “...yes?” he replies, wondering why this is even a question. The Scout turns back away from him and yells something to the… officer?
“And you don’t eat humans, do you?" he asked, "No murderous urges to wreak havoc and gorge yourself on human flesh?”
He looks up at the Scout in disbelief. “Uh, no?”
The Scout beams, and Eren absently notes that his canines are sharper than one would expect.
“Excellent! That makes this much easier,” he replies, and wheels around to place himself firmly between Eren and the people surrounding them. “Hear that, you vultures? He’s a human with the ability to use a Titan form! As a member of the Survey Corps and on behalf of Squad Levi, I’m claiming him for his strategic value in our fight against the Titans, which is more essential now than ever! If you fire on him or these cadets, I’ll have you all court-martialed as traitors against Humanity’s cause!”
Eren gapes at him, and slowly processes what the Scout’s just said.
Use a Titan form? Claimed for my strategic value?!
He tries to shoot up to his feet, but falls sideways into Armin’s death-grip and looks at him with eyes wide in confusion and rage.
“A-Armin, w-what’s going-”
“I’ll explain later,” Armin says shakily, “because right now we’re about to be executed and this Scout is trying to save our lives.”
The officer’s eyes are wild, and his hands shake. “Devils! Y-you’re all devils! How do we know you’re not a monster like it is?!”
“You watch your mouth!” the Scout shoots back. “This cadet saved my life and the lives of his comrades, and killed dozens of Titans while he did it! His abilities are a gift to Humanity, and a ray of hope in our fight to survive! He’s going to help us retake Wall Maria, and unless you want to starve to death like the rat you are, you need that done as much as the rest of us! Now, stand down.
The officer wavered, “B-but-”
“I said STAND DOWN, SOLDIER!”
The officer jolts, and instinctively goes into a salute. The others around him follow suit, sheathing blades and falling into a salute, fists over their hearts. Mikasa and Armin follow shakily, and Eren copies slowly, hands trembling. All of them looking at the blood-smeared, green-haired Scout with something like awe.
Dedicate your hearts.