Chapter 25: Pointless

'Fuck' thought Klemens while panicking inwardly.

His expression didn't betray his inner feelings, but he was clenching his jaw muscles hard to not let his thought appear on his face, he couldn't let his feeling transpire in front of an enemy.

'If this is Reiner it means that the one who escaped was Bertholdt, this is going to be really bad'

"Bertholdt escaped, they had an escape route that made the tunnel cave in, I couldn't give further chase" he said while taking deep breaths, not by tiredness but by anxiety.

It wasn't because he had failed, that could happen even to the best, but by the fact that the one who escaped was Bertholdt.

While Annie explained the titan's powers briefly she did say that Bertholdt's titan could be use for far more than just making a hole in the wall.

In this place, Wall Sina, a hole would be an enormous problem, but not catastrophic in the immediate, the true problem would be if Bertholdt transformed inside the city.

Everyone would die, every soldier, every civilian, every child.

Everyone would die and it would be only because had failed for the first time.

He could have sprinted faster, he could have prepared more, he could have even stopped Liesl from dragging them to the tunnels.

He had accepted because he was bored and now the city and tens of thousands of people could become history.

'If he transforms because now, it would be because we have driven him to desperation, he could think that the army already knows about him being a titan shifter and have everyone on his tail.

He doesn't know that it's only us, that it's only a coincidence that we found them, a really unlucky coincidence' thought the boy with his mind going into overdrive.

But a slap straight on his cheek snapped him back to reality.

"Wake the fuck up Kle, you couldn't have known, he isn't going to do what you're thinking, if he does that we will kill Reiner here and nobody would be happy, he is probably going to run at first, when he sees that we are the only ones here he will try to save Reiner here" she said pointing at the blonde person whose head she was pushing on the ground with her foot.

She breathed a sigh of relief once she saw that his previously unfocused and filled with dread eyes were focused and sharp once more and his clenched jaw relaxed.

"Good" she said stepping down from Reiner's head, she then crouched and lifted Reiner's head from the mud and said once she saw his eyes looking back "Hey Reiner, long time no see, you see, we really want to catch the two of you, we want that so much that we took a vacation to find you and get some answers, would you mind telling us why you killed Marco?"

She used a mix of truths and lies, he didn't know that they knew about them being titan shifters, he didn't know the true purpose of their vacation and he didn't know that they were willing to let him free if it meant the survival of the people of Stohess.

Therefore she fed him false details to have a more favorable collaboration.

"Hey Stark, Ackerman, what do you mean by killing Marco? I would never do that and why are you chasing us and why are we in such a dirty tunnel? We should go back to the camp, we are all soldiers after all" replied Reiner with desperation in his eyes.

"Is he stupid?" said Liesl after looking between the blonde and her friend.

"Maybe you kicked him too hard in the head" pointed out Klemens.

"Maybe" she replied before kicking Reiner in the face "Stop spouting bullshit, you are not a soldier, you're a murderer"

The words seemed to hurt Reiner who had confusion in his eyes, but as soon as he heard the words 'you are not a soldier' his confusion disappeared and only regret filled his eyes.

"It seems he remembers now" stated Klemens.

"Indeed, you're a bastard who killed one of his best friends in cold blood, you don't deserve forgiveness, you don't deserve a quick death, you will rot util your last day to repent for your sins, Marco only wanted to live a peaceful life"

Klemens looked at his friend skeptically, those words were weird for her, they didn't have much of a friendship with Marco so they weren't affected a lot by his death, but he realized that maybe it was just him, she was much more sociable after all.

He put a hand on her shoulder, she was spitting venom, but he could see her shoulder trembling.

He had been so insensitive as to not even talk to her about the death of her friend or give her a way to vent or grieve, letting her bottle her feelings deep down

He realized that it was not even just Marco, it was also all the other cadets who died, he hadn't even asked if there was someone she knew amid the losses, the thought hadn't even passed through his mind, no, he hadn't cared enough.

'I really am an asshole' he thought.

With resolution in eyes he swore to himself that those who caused her pain would suffer.

And fortunately one of them was already in their hands.

"Yes, I remember now and I am deeply ashamed by what I've done" he replied, showing true regret, but she didn't care and kicked him again, and again and again until his whole face was bloodied and battered.

And Klemens didn't even think of stopping her, he thought that if Reiner died from this it would have been well deserved, giving her a way to vent was an extra.

"I do not care about your regret, what I want know is to find your little boyfriend and put the two of you down like the rats you are"

She felt a hand fall on her shoulder so she looked at her friend behind her who had firmness in his eyes.

"Like you said earlier, snap out of it Lie, we both know that letting anger clouding our judgement would be detrimental to catching them, revenge but with a clear mind, now do a deep breath and calm down" he told her with a soothing tone.

"Yeah, you're right"

"As usual"

"Don't get cocky" she replied while closing her eyes and taking a deep breath like he said, she had vented and it was now time to be rational again.

Once she opened them they were clear from the anger from before.

"Now Reiner" said Klemens "Would you mind telling us were your little friend could have gone?"

"I have no idea, this was our hideout" replied the blonde.

"How did you even get here in the first place, you must have crossed at least a city or two"

"We passed through Karanes to get to Wall Sheena and getting here was pretty easy from there, the guards are incompetent and two deserters aren't worth that much effort from the army"

"Oh wow, may I know why you're being so cooperative?" asked Liesl with an amused smile, she really wanted to know where he got all this confidence from.

"Because I'm innocent Eren was lying about me and Bertholdt, we would have never done something like that!" shouted the young man.

"Really? You're really trying to lie in front of me of all people? I thought you smarter than that" replied Liesl with a disappointed look in her face.

Reiner didn't think that his lie would be called out so soon, but he should have known better after knowing Liesl for years at this point, lying in front of her was useless.

"I at least tried" chuckled Reiner, he thought that the situation was still salvageable, the moment they got to an open area outside of this tunnel he could just transform into his titan form to escape, maybe even kill the two monsters in front of him even if the chance was very low.

"Yeah, for a warrior from Marley I thought they would chose smarter people" said Klemens, the pretense of them not knowing what he actually was was useless now, they would get more info by revealing this detail.

The chance that he had more information than Annie was low, but not zero, so they had to try everything, Annie didn't know the exact moment when the other warriors from Marley would come to take them out, but maybe Reiner did.

"What!?" shouted Reiner.

'How do they know? If the whole army of Paradis knows this does that mean that they know everything about the titans? Maybe Eren isn't the Founder titan, but just the Attack titan and the Founder is still in the hands of the King inside the Walls.

No, that's absurd, if that were the case how come there are only two of them, as they said earlier we run away only because we thought there were many of them, but if there were only two we would have fought, well, if it was anyone other than these two monsters'

"Well, let's say that poor little Annie gave many juicy info under torture, you guys have never received any training to withstand specific types of torture fortunately" replied Liesl who then added "But you better not tell Marley, if you do, who knows what they'll do to her family, maybe they'll make an example out of yours too.

You're just a slave to them after all" she said while pronouncing each of her last words very clearly to make him picture the possibility as clearly as possible.

She had to avoid him talking about how Annie talked to the Marleyans, but telling him that she talked added to his already fractured and messed up mind another layer of despair at the thought of a torture that made even the tough Annie talking.

Telling him the truth was off limits as that would have him reporting to his superiors and causing problems, maybe even execution on Annie's father, and she didn't want that after promising the girl that they would take her back very soon.

She came to the conclusion that telling him like this would have brought them the most advantages possible while controlling the narrative, if knowing when people lie taught her something, that was precisely how to lie perfectly.

"So? Would you mind telling us where we can find you little friend? If you do that, maybe we'll let you go, after all the colossal titan is far more valuable than you small armored titan"

'They know even about which titan we have, what the hell have they done to Annie!' contrary to Liesl's belief, telling him about the torture didn't bring him dread at the thought of going through the same, but at the fact that Annie had suffered so much that she would reveal such information to the Demons of Paradis.

But this worked to their benefit anyway.

"You don't want us to spread the news that you gave us these info and be labelled as a traitor by Marley, do you? That would probably have your entire family put down" she kept adding more and more layers to the already incredibly high damage on Reiner's psyche.

Klemens didn't know what to think, his friend was capable of lying as naturally as she breathed while further destroying the poor Reiner's mind, he deserved it, but still poor Reiner.

He chose that staying silent and let her do her thing would have been the best course of action.

But still, Reiner gritted his teeth and kept his silence.

'Impressive' thought Klemens, slightly impressed by his enemy's resolve, but it was still useless.

Liesl chopped on the young man's neck putting him out cold, she then gave the now limp body to her friend and started walking into a particular tunnel randomly.

"Where are you going?" asked her friend.

"Where are we going is the right question, we are taking a random direction to eventually find Bertholdt before he escapes"

"And how does taking a random tunnel help us?" asked the boy, weirded out by her dumb choice for the course of action.

"You'll see, now, let's go" she said and refused to elaborate further.