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Screams mixed with sobs. Incomprehensible words, though undoubtedly they were threats. Other people, panicked voices mixing with the one, making for a disturbing cacophony of terror and fury.

"Ymir, stop!"

"Calm down, please!"

"Don't fucking tell me to calm down!"

"Ymir!"

"Please, Ymir, stop it!"

"I'm going to kill him! I'll tear out his fucking throat! He's going to pay for killing my Krista!"

"He didn't do it!"

She had become a wild animal, hell-bent on revenge. It was a dire hope for everyone that they could calm her, but deep down, they knew she wouldn't. Something in her had broken when they found the body. Some part of her had snapped then, something deep in her brain or heart. It didn't matter.

Suddenly she went limp, breathing ragged as tears poured down her cheeks. Her head drooped against her chest and she dropped like dead weight in her comrades' arms, eyes sliding closed as she started to cry quietly.

Sasha let out an audible sigh of relief. Her grip slackened around the girl's waist. "Shh, Ymir," she murmured, brushing tears off the brunette's face. "Please don't cry. Okay? Krista would have wanted you to be strong."

Connie's grip went loose as well. "Right," he agreed. "Eren didn't do it, alright? He was in the hospital wing all night. Right, Eren?"

Eren could only nod numbly. He was crying too, albeit silently. He let his head fall against the table in the mess hall, shoulders shaking. He couldn't stop the misery coursing through him. It was his fault. Ymir was right. All Eren had to do was exist, and Levi would kill. His heart broke even more when Ymir's sniffles grew into loud, gut-wrenching wails of her dead girlfriend's name, and he wrapped his arms around his middle, choking back his own sobs.

"K-Kri-is-taa-aaa!"

Warm arms wrapped around him, and Eren's chest felt painfully hollow when the familiar scents he associated with Mikasa and Armin wrapped around him like a secure blanket. They thought he was innocent. Everyone thought he was innocent. They were wrong. He had so much blood on his hands. He may not have been the killer, but he was an enabler, a horrible one that willingly let a murderer run rampant.

"Ymir!"

The sharp tone caught everyone's attention, and several heads whipped around in unison to stare at Captain Levi. Several salutes were thrown up, all except for Eren and Ymir, the former still wallowing in despair with his head on the table and the latter busy crying her broken heart out. Sasha nudged the girl gently.

"Ymir. Captain wants you."

The brunette's cries quieted slightly, and she glanced up with red-rimmed eyes. "What do you want?" It sounded hollow, nothing like her usual jibes. She'd always challenged authority, something that scared the other cadets but would be welcomed with open arms now. Anything that meant she was back to normal, but it was too much to ask for.

Levi studied her for a moment, before answering coldly, "Get your shit together, soldier."

Eren was shocked at the harsh command. Raising his head, he glared at the man, snapping out, "Levi." But it was too late to interrupt, for Levi had captured Ymir's attention.

"Get my shit together?" The raw hatred in her eyes was blurred by tears. "What about you, Captain dearest? Your close friend and her assistant just got brutally murdered!"

"Do you expect me to cry my eyes out?" Levi scoffed. He approached the girl kneeling on the ground, and dropped to one knee. Looking her straight in the eyes, expression neutral, he said, "I still have responsibilities, despite the murders. I can't afford to waste time mourning, and neither can you."

It was dead silent. Ymir's head dropped, and she stared at the ground. Suddenly her shoulders started to shake, and then her whole body. When she looked back up at Levi, her face was contorted in an incomprehensible rage.

"You don't even care, do you?!" And suddenly she was screaming again, lunging at the short captain and bowling him over to the ground. She grabbed at his shoulders and shook him violently, nose to nose as she pinned him down. "Hanji is dead! Her assistant was tortured! My dear, beloved Krista was beheaded by that fucking murderer! You heartless bastard, how can you not care?!"

Levi's face remained impassive despite the hostility radiating from her. The room's other occupants were shocked, many trying to verbally coax Ymir off of him, but in doing so, none of them noticed him slip into a familiar, wicked smirk. With her larger frame blocking his, her face pressed up so close, he was able to whisper to her with no one else hearing.

"Perhaps your little girlfriend shouldn't have stuck her nose where it didn't belong."

Ymir's pupils shrunk in realization, and her eyes went wide. Her lips curled back to reveal teeth, and she moved her hands to his throat, pressing down on the short man's windpipe as hard as he could. She knew. She knew he had done it! Unfortunately for her, she couldn't muster anything except hoarse screams, so she settled on the next best thing. Rather than reveal the captain as the murderer he was, she was going to fucking kill him! Then he couldn't kill anyone else! She would avenge her precious girlfriend!

"Ymir, stop!"

"Don't attack him!"

"Ymir, please!"

Eren saw it play-by-play. He ignored his friends in favor of his lover, seeing everything in vivid detail as it played out. Levi's face turning red, and then losing color. The way his eyes had started to cloud over, even as his expression remained impassive. Svelte fingers creeping toward his boot as his lips tinged blue, grasping a dagger hidden there and pulling it out. Almost in slow motion how he raised it and, in a flash, stabbed it into the back of his attacker's neck.

As Ymir's eyes slid shut, her expression of shock remained in death, and her grip on her victim's throat slackened. She slumped forward onto Levi, and the latter pushed her off, coughing harshly. The captain held a hand to his throat as he coughed, struggling upright and into a chair as the others looked on in horror. His throat burned, and he silently cursed himself for not acting sooner against Ymir, but it was too late for that.

"Captain, are... are you alright?"

"He just killed Ymir!"

"Yeah, because she was trying to kill him, idiot!"

"I can't believe Ymir just lost it like that. Captain was being a little insensitive, but..."

Levi tuned him out. He focused on the brunet kneeling in front of him, large sea-green eyes trained on him in a mix of worry and apprehension. Eren waited until the coughing subsided and offered a glass of water to the captain, and suddenly Levi had no idea what the cadet was thinking. Eren's face was guarded, his eyes trained on something past Levi.

"Are you alright?" he asked quietly.

"Fine," Levi replied, just as quietly. Suddenly he wasn't so satisfied over his little victory. He massaged his throat gently, grimacing. "Are there bruises?"

"Yeah. They'll probably be there a while."

Levi sighed. "Well, I know how to cover those."

"Is this really the time for those jokes?" Eren snapped, looking affronted. Levi glared at him.

"I was talking about the fact that people have tried to choke me to death before, Jaeger."

Eren looked away. His stiff posture loosened, and he rested his cheek against Levi's thigh, closing his eyes. The others had left in search of other superiors. Gentle fingers threaded through his thick hair, and the ache in his chest returned.

"I was scared," he admitted quietly. "I thought she was going to kill you."

"You should have been happy. I'm a murderer. You shouldn't have worried."

"I know. But I did anyways. Does that make me messed up like you, Levi?"

The hand on his head stilled briefly, but started again like nothing had happened. "I don't know. It would be good news for me."

Eren shivered.

.-.-.-.-.

I'm turning into him.

I don't know what to do anymore.