Chapter 46: Blood on the ground.

"You know Kle... I don't think I like doing this anymore, I was so dumb." said a girl's self-deprecating voice.

"I hate this." replied her companion more straightforwardly.

The two were currently sitting side by side inside of a collapsed house in a village filled with houses that looked the same.

Right beside them was the rapidly disappearing body of a titan, a titan that couldn't move in the first place, one that wasn't a threat to anybody.

One that had once been the mother of one of their teammates.

"What is wrong with those people? Doing everything to make our lives miserable, and for what? Just some stupid resources, don't they have enough in the rest of the world?" she kept whispering, even in this situation she kept in mind that nobody else should hear her words, not even their companions, not yet.

"I... I don't know, Lie... I don't know." for the first time in years he felt weak, which would have been laughable if he said it out loud.

He, arguably one of the most deadly humans on the planet, felt weak, powerless, because he had no actual power to stop things like this from happening.

"Why can they do things like this? What gave them the right to take our families away from us, our friends, our neighbors, everyone we know, and give them the worst possible death?"

He didn't answer, he just wrapped his arm around her as she said out loud the same questions that had been plaguing his mind for a long time.

But there was only one thing that he could say in this situation, and he hated himself for having to say it in their current situation, "Lie, get yourself back up, we need to go."

A few seconds of silence pervaded the area, but soon enough he received an answer, "Yes, you're right, this is not the time for an emotional outburst, but as soon as this is wrapped up I want us to go for a drink, alright?"

"Yes, I'd love to."

They stood up, their gaze once again as sharp as always, ready to keep going, on and on, until the day they could rest finally came without the fear that one country or another started an invasion to their home.

They left the demolished house and went to the spot that they had decided as the regroup point, to find their three companions there, Connie seems a bit different from normal, but he looked better than the last time they had seen him.

"You're late." stated Jean turning around to face them.

"Yeah, yeah, we all needed a second of relief after all that horse riding, don't you think so?" asked Liesl, acting the same way as usual.

"I guess, but I still think that this isn't the best moment to rest, captain."

A slight smirk emerged on her face after Sasha teased, "Ooh, Jean, finally accepting that you're their underling?"

"Shut up, you stupid food crazed potato eater, at least I haven't been domesticated by the crazy monster!"

"Who's a crazy monster, Jean?" asked Liesl with a, very, menacing look in her eyes as she ominously started walking toward him.

As the three played around, Connie neared Klemens, who was looking at his companion fondly, and asked, "What have you done with the titan? Did you discover how it got there?"

The previous smile nearly disappeared from Klemens' lips, but he managed to keep it to not alarm his friend, and he turned around and looked at Connie straight into his eyes, trying to find a way to tell him that he killed his mom.

Before the silence became suspicious he finally said, "I gave it mercy."

"Why waste you blades with that? It couldn't hurt anyone like that." asked Connie with a weirded look in his eyes, he didn't feel any sadness, however, it was just a titan after all.

"I did the most humane thing, even if it was a titan it didn't deserve to keep living in that way, as for how it got there, we found no clue.

Maybe another titan transported it or something."

"Wow, are you serious?! Is that a thing? How come I never heard about titans transporting other titans?" replied a weirded out Connie before receiving a slap on the back of his head.

"Because it's not, moron."

"I'm not a moron, I just thought that it might be possible with, I don't know, an abnormal titan?"

"Oh definitely, I dread the day abnormal titans start throwing small titans above the wall." replied Klemens with a smirk on his face.

Even knowing he was being messed with, Connie still shivered at the thought, an abnormal like that would spell disaster for humanity!

"Come on morons! We're leaving, we have more road to make and more titans to give mercy to." said the black haired tall youth to call his companions back into attention.

"Since when do you say 'give mercy'?" asked Connie in puzzlement, who was still by his side.

"It's a new thing, I think it sounds better than killing." he replied, the true reason buried deep inside his mind.

They mounted their horses as Liesl started to present to the rest of the team their next course of action.

"As all of you know, Ragako is in the south, the fact that we still haven't found any titan on the way from Trost is already weird enough, there is a possibility that they are being lured away, or even controlled by a titan shifter."

"They can do that?!" asked Sasha, distraught by the idea.

"Maybe, we don't know much about the enemy, so I wouldn't put it past them, anyway, now we will keep going in our current direction until we get to one of the military castles in the area, we'll probably find some of ours there to get more accurate info on the titans' movements, understood?"

After the three collectively replied affirmatively, the team picked up the pace, while still going slow enough that their horses would be able to keep handle it a bit more.

Just an hour later, they got to the castle, but what they found there was far from what they were used to.

What they found, was a bunch of ruins, some of the walls still having red splatters of blood.

Tall towers had been taken down, walls breached, bodies gnawed on and not a single living being or titan in sight.

Apparently, the people here weren't as lucky as the inhabitants of Ragako, thought the three underlings while their two superiors kept internally debating which of the two fates to be the most monstrous.

On one hand, the people transformed into man eating monstrosities that would never stop their march to kill more people.

On the other hand, the people in the castle were on the other side of those same man eating monstrosities, struggling and hoping that one of the monsters had pity on them and gave them a swift death.

This was the second time Klemens and Liesl saw such a sight in front of their eyes, the first time was the day of the breach of Shiganshina, the day dubbed the 'Worst day for humanity'

The big difference between these two occasions, was that this time the two of them were powerful enough to stop it, if only they had been there.

They kept searching around, finding nobody alive, just bodies, tens of bodies, mostly of people the didn't recognize, but among them there were some that would be imprinted in their minds for the rest of their lives.

Like James, a member of 104th cadet corp who joined the garrison, he didn't have the motivation nor the ambition to get higher in the ranks, he just wanted to live a comfortable life as a soldier until retirement came.

Like Lilie, another fellow cadet with a lot of hope for the future, she had fallen in love with a fellow cadet and they wanted to marry, but there she was, lying in a pool of her own blood, still hugging a completely squashed corps.

But the last one, the one which made the most impact into the twos minds, was Thomas Warner's death, while they didn't have much of a relationship with the other two recruits, they had trained, eaten and joked alongside him.

But now, only the upper half of his body remained, his face warped in horror and pain.

"Search the perimeter, if you find any titan, sleeping or awake, shoot a red flare, as soon as a flare is shot everybody has to converge at the location, we might be surrounded and we don't even know it, I don't want to lose anybody." informed Klemens after seeing the umpteenth lifeless body.

"Yes sir." nobody objected, they weren't in the mood to bicker.

While the visit to Ragako gave them the hope that not many people died and that they managed to escape before hell arrived, this nameless castle smashed it into nothingness.

The Sun had settled by now, and any titan they encountered at this time of the day would either be more sluggish then normal or completely useless.

Soon enough, two flares were shot at the same time, something neither of the captains wanted to actually see, "You go to the one in front, I go to the one behind, don't die Kle."

"I could say the same." he replied as he shot to the area assigned to Jean.

As soon as he got to the location he found Jean evading a class five meters' attacks, which weren't sluggish in the slightest.

The instant Klemens cut its nape, killing it, he saw another titan emerging from the surrounding trees.

"How can they still move?" exclaimed Jean in confusion, by now, captain Hange's studies on the titans she captured were widespread in the army.

The two titans going through what was basically torture day and night were an invaluable source of intel in how a titan's body worked, and even more importantly than that, what their weak points were.

One of the most usable was their need for sunlight, but the Sun had already settled and they were still moving, "I don't know, let's go back to the castle."

Not that a demolished castle would have helped with protecting them, but a height vantage point was way more useful then a place filled with blindspots like the one they were currently in.

When they reached their current base of operations they found their other three team members already waiting for them.

"What's the situation?" asked Liesl to her companion, a tad of worry in her eyes.

"Titans, two, one dead, but if there are two there are probably more, worst of all, they can still move."

"Damnit, it was the same with us, Sasha retreated as soon as she saw the flares, but its safe to assume that we're surrounded, how the hell didn't we meet any coming here?!" she exclaimed while punching a hole into an already half broken wooden wall inside the keep.

"Calm down Lie, anger won't help, Connie, go to the top of this tower and report as soon as you see a class seven meters or up."

"Yes sir."

"Sasha, search around the place for any food remaining, Jean, you search for any weapons remaining, both of you will bring here anything you find."

"Yes sir." answered Jean, while his peer was gone as soon as the word food left Klemens' mouth, causing his companion to chuckle slightly.

The moment they had all left the room and only the two of them were left, Liesl asked her friend, "What do you think?"

"I barricaded the door, we need rest, we've been on the road since this morning, I can see that they can't keep going for long, so while I protect us for this night all of you will catch some rest."

"What about you? I won't let you fight all night long."

"All night long? Lie, you know me, the fight will end instantly, especially if I can lure them in the trees, and more then that I can handle a night or two without sleep, we did worse while training, but we need you to be fully ready in case of an emergency." he replied nonchalantly, without an ounce of fear in his eyes.

If it was a direct fight, he feared nobody, not even the titan shifters.

She sighed deeply, but she knew he had a point, the both of them couldn't be tired at the same time, "Fine, but promise me one thing."

"Sure."

"Don't push yourself."

He chuckled at the irony, she was the last person who could tell him that.

"Fine."