Do you know how much I have lost?

The door to the Karanese district slowly opened and the Survey Corps, who lost many soldiers, returned to the City with an anguished expression. Today they had discovered more than just a defeat, today everyone knows that intelligent titans are out there and they are more dangerous than fifty titans combined. 

Passersby coming and going looked at the Survey Corps members who had evidently reduced their original numbers, their morale was low, many of them were even wrapped in bandages and with blood stains on their clothes. 

"Looks like they lost a considerable number of soldiers again." 

"Isn't it obvious? Look at the lumps of corpses in the carriages." 

"It's a big loss again!" 

"Looks like our tax money was wasted again, now I wonder if we'll ever be victorious!" 

"You shouldn't count on them!" 

These voices, naturally, reached the ears of everyone in the Survey Corps. Everyone's faces were ugly, and even the recruits lowered their heads, forming a sharp contrast to before they left! 

Many looked at the sky, all wept with helplessness for not being able to achieve a victory and shout to everyone that they have won. 

What the masses think is something everyone in the Survey Corps must accept! No one cares how the Survey Corps failed, no one asks if it was hard or they were afraid. 　　 

"Captain Erwin, may I ask if the Survey Corps has made any contribution?" someone in the crowd asked.　　 

Erwin Smith was expressionless and shouted, "Today the Survey Corps fought valiantly for humanity, we managed to kill one of the titans that attacked the Maria wall!" 

Hearing these words, not only the civilians were shocked, but also some of the soldiers who were not informed about what happened inside the forest. 

The female titan was killed? 

"Are you lying to us?" someone in the crowd looked towards the Survey Corps commander. 

Erwin looked at everyone, "I wouldn't dare lie to you, today we have taken a big step in our fight with the titans." He knew this credit was due to Takashi who sacrificed years of his life, he couldn't deny it but he decided to at least mention that credit to everyone. 

Everyone fell silent and started shouting in excitement, "Well done commander!" 

"We have finally started to eliminate those special titans attacking humanity!" 

"A special titan was killed!" 

"Long live Survey Corps!" 

Without saying any more words, Erwin just wanted to boost the morale of the civilians and show that they weren't just losing. Some shouted beautiful things to Levi, others praised the efforts for the wounded people. 

Eren in the carriage heard the discussion in the crowd, he felt a little happy but he didn't know which titan had been eliminated, it was definitely not the female titan. Then who? Eren saw some children looking at them excitedly. 

Pointing to the Survey Corps soldiers, the children shouted to the adults, "Look, the Survey Corps has accomplished something many thought impossible, you shouldn't be so hard on them, despite being wounded they didn't give up on this war!" 

Eren suddenly remembered himself from many years ago, when he was young, he saw the Survey Corps return with heavy losses very similar to the way they were! Unwilling to look any longer, he laid back down as he covered his eyes, no one could look at his silent tears. 

After training hard for three long years, he finally became a Survey Corps soldier. He thought there might be a great job, but he again lost and became a burden to everyone. 

Mikasa in the carriage looked at Eren, who covered his face and cried, took his hand, not knowing how to comfort him.　　 

The Survey Corps veterans were not feeling well either. Auruo Brossard, who had bandages on his arms, was very depressed, "Gunther is dead, I don't even know how to look at his relatives." 

Petra and Erd next to him had somber expressions, "We have to tell his family anyway." 

"We have to all go as the squad we are, we fought by his side before he was killed."  Erd said in a cold voice. 

No matter how many times he experiences this kind of thing, he can't get used to it! 

On the other hand, Petra's father appeared out of nowhere and was talking to Captain Levi, "Captain Levi, I wanted to discuss a few things with you before she sees me, she wrote me a letter saying that she had joined your squadron and was honored to work under your command." 

"Haha, she's so little I really don't want her to get married so soon..." 

Levi, on the other hand, wasn't in a bad mood, you could even say he was a little glad that Petra hadn't died, otherwise he didn't know how to face Petra's father. 　　

Young Petra finally found her father who was chatting with Captain Levi and was very embarrassed. She probably guessed what he would say, so she ran and took her father somewhere else. 

Captain Levi breathed a sigh of relief, he really wasn't very good at dealing with such things. 

Takashi also listened to all the voices and doubts around him, lying in a carriage his face remained unchanged and he decided to rest, people sometimes are straightforward and don't consider all the effort behind it.　 

Sasha also watched everything from next to Takashi and said nothing, today she was sad of the many bad things that had happened. 

Liam, who was in the crowd, looked at Ymir and Chirsta, he couldn't look at Takashi so he asked, "Where is Takashi?" 

Ymir looked at Liam and pointed to a carriage without saying a word. As Liam looked towards the carriages he felt a shiver run through his body, it couldn't be happening, Takashi died? 

"Takashi, how dare you die you bastard, didn't you say you would kill all the titans in the world? Get up you idiot!" Liam's scream was not long in coming, everyone was stunned by Liam's cries. 

"He sure is a brainless idiot..." Ymir muttered with a grimace. 

"Ymir, you need to explain things properly so there's no confusion." Christa scolded Ymir and tried to solve the problem. 

"No, he's just asleep." Sasha said nervously. 

"An eternal sleep among the blankets of darkness, Takashi wakes up..." Liam shouted without paying attention to Sasha's words. 

Takashi, who was completely motionless, frowned as he heard the screams of the idiot Liam. Opening his eyes, he looked at Liam and said, "Stop making a fuss, I'm not dead yet so don't kill me so soon." 

Liam, who was crying, looked at Takashi who had sat up and reached out his hands to touch his face, "Are you a zombie?" 

"Stop hallucinating you idiot!" shouted Takashi with a strange feeling, he was feeling like he really had died.  

"Takashi! How can you be asleep like that, don't you have any consideration for your friends?" Liam said, "I want to talk to you." 

Takashi jumped out of the carriage and walked with Liam to a secluded place. Liam lowered his voice and said, "Takashi, you should have seen how Eren become a titan in the battle to take back the Trost district a month ago, right?" 

Takashi had a strange expression on his face, "What do you mean?" 

"That night at the snowy mountain trail, the lightning we saw was made by Ymir, right?" Liam narrowed his eyes and pointed, "On that night Daniel was in a coma and Christa said that Ymir had gone ahead to take Daniel to the camp, he arrived an hour before us." 

"Well, actually, I've known about this for a long time. I've asked several teammates, and the recapture of Trost her hasn't gone out of everyone's sight. It's not an enemy titan, and it's unlikely to be one of those who attacked the wall of Trost." Takashi said with a matter-of-fact expression. 

Liam was surprised, "You already knew that, Ymir is a titan?" 

Takashi mentioned fake words to him with some truth. 

Liam was a bit silent after hearing this, and Takashi asked him, "What are you going to do, expose her?" 

Sighing, Liam said, "I don't know how to do it." 

"Do you trust her?" 

"I can trust her, after all she saved Daniel." 

"Why do you think she hid her identity?" 

"It's probably to protect herself from others. Don't look at her bitter look. She doesn't really feel safe and is very defensive of others." Liam said with a thoughtful expression.

"Really?" Takashi smiled and said, "Liam, do you know what we're doing? Now we're withholding information that's important to humanity and we can't put personal feelings above everyone's safety!" 

"Yes, but I can't ignore this discovery! I know it's not the way to go on like this, should you have an idea?" Liam looked at Takashi and then at the wound on his foot. Ymir even though she was a witch, she helped him in many things and she really wasn't a bad person. 

"Don't worry, I already talked to her years ago and she decided to fight for humanity as well as Eren did." Takashi said, "I have plans for the future of this war, you shouldn't rush and just watch how things develop." 

"What if she is an enemy?" asked Liam hesitantly. 

Takashi opened his eyes wide, "You better not, I don't want to kill her." 

"Really? Since you already knew that, why didn't you do it before?" 

"She's my partner and I promised to protect her from harm, she promised me she wouldn't betray me and would keep her ability a secret." 

Liam smiled, "You are so gentle, I thought you would say you would find a safe way to kill her." 

Takashi shook his head and said, "Who knows? Maybe I will in the future, I might even marry her." 

"Really? I'll leave it to you, and I'll keep it a secret for now..." 

"Okay." 

The Survey Corps members walked slowly through the streets of Karanese and then returned to the castle in Rose's territory. 

The Gendarmerie members soon delivered the order to hand over Eren and the commander himself will have to give an explanation for the alleged lies he told to the public. 

"The Survey Corps suffered great losses this time, how dare they say that they have killed an intelligent titan? As a result they have lost the power to hold Cadet Eren Jaeger unless they prove otherwise." 

Captain Erwin ignored the arrogant Gendarmerie Corps and did not panic. He brought four recruits, Eren, Mikasa, Armin and Takashi, and a group of senior Survey Corps members to a meeting. 

Commander Erwin said in a deep voice, "You know the situation, the order was issued from the central government to transfer Eren." 

Mike, Hange, Levi and Dirk did not speak, they just waited in silence, Commander Erwin is not one to give up lightly and will not allow them to be accused of fallacies. 

Commander Erwin looked at Armin, "Arlet, tell everyone your assumption." 

Armin told everyone that he suspected the female titan was Annie, and everyone was surprised. 

Captain Mike frowned and said, "You have no real evidence, how can you be sure Annie Leonhart is the female titan?" 

Armin said, "After the enemy saw my face clearly, she let me go, maybe it was because she was my friend, so she spared my life." 

"Even after Eren became a titan, his appearance was still very similar to himself, I always felt very familiar with the female titan's eyes. Most likely the female titan is a female, with yellow hair and I can only think of Annie." 

"And she was looking for someone by appearance from the beginning, if she wasn't familiar with Eren, she wouldn't be able to do this at all! More importantly, the last time the maneuvering equipment was checked, she had that of Marco Bott who had died at the hands of a titan." 

Nanaba frowned, a little hesitantly, "But this is all just speculation. It's possible she killed the test subject just out of hatred for titans. This isn't very reliable, what if I make a single mistake?" 

Hange Zoe had a pained expression etched on her face. After only a few days of experimenting with the titans, they were killed. She is very upset! 

Takashi had a cold expression on his face and averted his gaze to Eren: "So that's how it is.... Eren, you who fought with the female titan and have trained with Annie before, how sure are you of that?" 

Eren lowered his head with a guilty conscience. When Armin suspected that the titan was Annie, he knew that 90% of it was true. The reason he was stunned and defeated in seconds was because the female titan's fighting gestures were exactly the same as Annie's. And that sense of familiarity wasn't fake. 

He just didn't want to believe it! 

Mikasa recalled, "I also think it's very similar to her, I always feel Annie has a resemblance when I remember the female titan." 

Seeing this, Hange, Levi and Mike knew that Amin's guess was probably true. 

"Armin, according to your words, did you suspect her for a long time?" Takashi asked coldly. Recently Connie told him that Nelson was killed and Thomas was seriously injured. 

He was sure that if he knew of something that implicated someone with the titans, he would not hesitate and face the person without hesitation. There were many deaths and all because Armin decided not to believe that Annie was an enemy. 

"I didn't believe it at first..." Armin said with a worried expression. 

"Do you know what we lost! Not only my friend died, but soldiers!" Takashi pounded the table angrily, "If you know who the damn enemy is cut his throat, do you know how I feel now because of your stupid conscience?" 

Everyone was surprised to hear Takashi's anger, to tell the truth thanks to him that the operation turned out in a better way. 

"Should I teach you how to deal with an enemy?" Takashi asked coldly. 

"That's enough, Takashi." Mikasa interjected with a cold expression. 

"Is that enough? You are worthless, instead of supporting me you went to check on Eren's well being, I could die today and you would be the one responsible." Takashi this time couldn't let Mikasa's irresponsible attitude go. 

"There will be a chance to check Takashi, for now we have to keep calm." Erwin said seeing Takashi so upset, he heard that he had lost a very close friend. 

"If you omit a detail again that endangers the lives of my teammates, you will bear the consequences." Takashi said before sitting back down. He was furious, Annie turned out to be the female titan and it turns out that Armin had suspicions from the start.