chapter 12: Leaving

"Exactly. So? What is your answer?"

"Is that even a question? Accepting this medal would bring a bit of relief to the common people and take their minds away from the disaster of the reappearance of the colossal titan, plus it'll be of help in our future careers" analyses the boy.

"I don't really care, but I'd rather stay here to deal with all the titans that are still entering Trost, what we really need now is a way to close that hole, otherwise any medal is just a piece of metal" said the girl while sulking, as if she was a kid whose toy had just been stolen.

"Shut up while the adults are talking Lie" said the boy "While that is true, we can't help with finding a way to do it, while accepting this medal would help more in bringing a bit of hope to the people"

"That's true I guess" she decided to momentarily ignore the comment about shutting up, she would pinch him later, with all her strength "Well commander, we accept"

"Good choice, the two of you are departing tomorrow, the trip will last a few days and you'll stay there a week, for now the two of you have the time to say goodbye to your friends.

From tomorrow your fellow cadets will follow the members of the survey corps inside Trost to search for any person still in the district and search for any potential way to close the hole, it should be relatively safe given the low amount of titans, but it is never really safe when there are titans around, so I think you should say your goodbyes, just in case" said the commander, bringing a bad feeling in the hearts of the two.

The years they had spent together with their fellows were more than enough for them to forge tight bonds among each others, Klemens had very few friends, but he was willing to do anything to protect those few, like Eren, Armin, Connie and Mikasa, they became close mostly because those at the top of the rankings tended to interact more with each other, so it was a natural process.

Liesl on the other hand had formed friendships with most people, but, much like Klemens, those she considered close were few, mainly Sasha, Christa and weirdly enough Annie, who didn't seem to want anything to do with her in the beginning, but had eventually lost against the social butterfly that was Liesl.

So the both of them were certainly shook by the possibility of them dying, even if they had known the possibility for a long time.

"Yes sir" the two answered, leaving then the room.

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"Did you see them?! They were fantastic! Against the two of them the titans were nothing but practice targets!" shouted excitedly a recruit.

"Yes... if only we had someone like them five years ago we would have had none of the problems we have now" mumbled a different recruit, he had come back just in time to see the devastation Klemens was raining on the poor titans who couldn't even react to his presence.

"Don't worry Eren, you'll have all the time in the world to get eaten tomorrow, you heard what the superiors said, they'll send un inside Trost to help with potential survivors to let us experience the might of titans, they said" replied Jean who, as usual, was antagonizing Eren.

"Shut up Jean, the only one who'll die tomorrow will be you, horse face!" replied Eren.

"Repeat that if you have the courage, you suicidal blockhead!" taunted horse face.

But as the two were about to jump at each other, a cool voice could suddenly be heard from the door of the common room they were in "Stop it morons, if you kill each other now, who'll feed the titans tomorrow?"

It was Klemens, who found some of his favorite in the same place, in the room there were a good amount of cadets, among which he could see Eren and Jean, obviously, Armin and Mikasa, who were everywhere Eren was, Connie, Sasha and a few others he didn't really care about.

"What's up guys?" came a second voice from behind Klemens, following him came into the room Liesl, who was still laughing because of something the others hadn't seen.

Klemens looked at her in the eyes menacingly, telepathically telling her to not reveal what had happened, to which Liesl bursted laughing once more.

A mischievous appeared in her eyes as she immediately said "Hey, listen here..." but she had to stop as Klemens grabbed her and covered her mouth, he then proceeded to drag her out of the room and closed the door behind him.

The other in the room seemed confused, eventually Connie said "What the hell was that?"

"I don't know, probably their usual stupid shit" replied Jean, who had let go of his fight with Eren after the much stronger boy's appearance.

"Yeah..." mumbled Connie as he remembered what his friend called their stupid shit.

Like that one time that Liesl dragged her friend's whole bunk bed in the middle of the night outside of his shared barrack and in the middle of the training camp, he had been waken up by the instructor putting his pair of swords on his neck menacingly.

To this day nobody found out how she did it and the fact that she even moved the other person sleeping on the bunk bed without waking anybody up made it even more mysterious, that morning, two men woke up in the same bed hugging each other amid the laugher of the others.

There was also the time were Klemens managed to steal her underwear, while she was wearing them under her pants, and attached them on her back with tree raisin, her screams for vengeance could be heard for hours after the fact.

'Thank god they only target each other' thought Connie every time he remembered their stupid shit, as everyone had come to call their shenanigans.

Two minutes later the two came back inside the room as if nothing happened and they told them that they would depart the next day to the royal palace.

"I hope we'll meet again, don't do stupid things and never underestimate titans, there is a reason if we are segregated inside the walls" said Klemens, he knew that their display of absolute dominance over humanity's enemy might have inflated someones ego, making them think that it would be an easy fight.

"Yeah" continued Liesl "You guys are not us, you can't do the things we did, your top priority should always be remaining alive, killing the enemies comes only after that, even better, if you see a titan run away and call those from the survey corps!"

She was being hypocritical and she knew it.

Her friend didn't lose a bit to mock her "Says the mountain maker" he mumbled, loudly enough to only be heard by her.

She answered by throwing a punch to his arm "Ow"

They talked for a bit about things, their friends were starting to talk about their previous fight the day before, something neither of them wanted to talk about so they changed the subject.

"You guys have no idea how good those at the high rankings of the military treat themselves, they have big single rooms with a desk and a night table" said Liesl, who thought that making them jealous would be enough to change their focus.

"And the food" said Klemens, who knew could see further than her the best way to change completely the conversation.

She saw Sasha's head snap in their direction as soon as the word food was heard and immediately understood were her friend was going.

"Oh yeah, this morning we ate breakfast with Commander Pixis, we had ham and white bread and it was fantastic" her friend nodded.

"Oh? You ate together, you're alway together, don't tell me you also slept together" teased Connie, who shot blindly, but completely hit the target.

The faces of the two reddened a bit and an uncomfortable silence descended in the group sitting at the table, but before anyone could ask further, Klemens asked "Oh yeah, were are Rainer, Bertholdt and Annie, why aren't they here?"

The people at the table replied that they had no idea.

"Oh well, guess we'll have to find them, see you later" followed Liesl, dragging Klemens away by his hand.

Once they were outside of the room, the two gave each other a thumb up and left, searching for the next group of people to warn on the danger of titans.

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They searched for a long time, around two hours, but never managed to find even a shadow of the people they were searching for, eventually giving up, Liesl really wanted to meet up with Annie, but she had to be satisfied with meeting her at dinner.

Eventually dinner time came, they dined with their friends, joked and laughed for the last time before the next day, they both knew that some would die, most seemed much too fearless at going against titans, most probably because of the twos display.

What they didn't realize was that the two were absolutely at an advantage in that situation.

The titans were coming one at a time from a very limited range of space, they knew exactly when a titan would come through thanks to the lookout and they didn't need to fear anything as they knew that if they were ever in trouble the other would interfere immediately.

Most important was also the difference in sheer ability, the entirety of the best twenty of them would be necessary to even begin making the two sweat in an all against two fight, even then there would be close to no chance to win if not if for Mikasa and Annie.

Night came, the two once again slept together and the next morning came the time to depart, they didn't need to say any goodbyes as they had already done so the day before.

The journey took a few days during which they had no information about their friends fate, they to had take a few detours that stretched the journey as they were required to show their faces around various cities and major villages, they were a symbol so they had to act like one.

The main purpose they had accepted this medal was to pacify the people in the first place after all, and showing their faces around would help with that, or at least that's what commander Pixis thought.

A week later the two finally reached the capital and the royal palace, where they were finally informed about what had happened while they were traveling.

"What do you mean 68 deaths and 329 injured? I remember that there were close to no titan inside Trost, how the hell did that happen?!" screamed Liesl outraged as soon as she heard the report.

Klemens was just as alarmed, only that he didn't show it outwardly, but in his eyes you could still see worry and rage, in his understanding the only way for so many deaths to happen against so little titans would be if the command was absolute shit, and from what he had seen, Pixis didn't seem that incompetent.

"Sir, apparently, the first day we had only 5 casualties, unfortunately the third day after the fall of Trost District a great number of titans suddenly entered the breach at the same time, we still don't know the cause of this, now a great amount of titans roam inside the wall and we stopped sending men inside"

Neither of them had a higher rank than the soldier, in fact they weren't even required to receive such a report, but their status was special, the government made sure that everyone, from the common population to the soldier, knew their faces and what they had done that day.

Thanks to that most in the army respected them profoundly, those that didn't respect them feared them or didn't believe the news, they thought that humans had no way of actually beating titans, but then these two fifteen year olds came and slaughtered hundreds in a single day, it was simply inhuman for them.

The soldier then left the room, now only the two of them remained inside, they had all the privacy they needed.