Year 850
—Continuation of Day 1—
The black haired girl held a confused face as she stared at the blonde one "He...?"
Shallie had a short pause "It appears to be a male, so 'he'..." She answered before looking up at the walls "I'll look for the Garrison soldiers, you can return to the headquarters after you snap him out of it."
Hoshino nodded and looked at Connie who was wrapped around her like a koala, he was still stunned to the point that he couldn't think straight anymore "It destroyed the gate... We're gonna die... It's over... I won't be able to go back to my hometown..." He whispered over and over again while his hands trembled which made Hoshino let out a little 'tch'.
The girl had enough of it and decided to make him snap back to reality so she returned her blades into her gear and cupped Connie's cheeks, making him look at her "Listen! We'll still join the Survey Corps together! Us and our classmates! We are not going to die, not today, okay?! So snap out of it, shitty baldhead!" She shouted at him furiously which actually made him realize things.
He looked at her and carefully took her hands off his face "Yeah... Sorry, I was out of it..." he said before shooting his Vertical Maneuver on the wall to hang beside Hoshino.
As they both calmed down, they turned their look back at the titan and to their terror, it was looking at them with a cold stare. They stared back, frozen until the titan emitted a large amount of steam before it disappeared. The steam reached the area where Hoshino and Connie are, making the boy shield the lady from the hot steam with his body.
The pressure was so intense to the point that Hoshino's hook got taken off the wall making her almost fall but thankfully Connie caught her waist on time "Are you okay?" He asked her, holding her tightly.
"Yeah... That was pretty hot..." The lady stated which earned an uncontrollable blush from the boy, misunderstanding her sentence.
Connie covered his mouth with his hand as their position stayed. Hoshino pressed against the wall while him towering over her "You think so?..." He asked.
The girl promptly raised an eyebrow "I meant the steam..." She said before feeling a sharp pain on her cheek, turns out she got slightly burned from the steam that titan emitted. She looked at Connie's face and he had several burns on his cheeks making her widen her eyes in both concern and guilt. "You got burnt..."
"This is nothing, more importantly we need to return to the headquarters." The boy said as he was about to pull both of them up the wall with his Vertical Maneuver when a titan suddenly came and managed to grab Hoshino's foot.
Sweat dropped down her forehead as she took her blades out, preparing to fight "Let me go, Connie! You'll only get dragged down with me!"
"As if I'd do that! When did you become suicidal like that guy?!" Connie shouted, desperately holding on to her waist tightly, he didn't have any intention of letting her go.
She felt the titan's grip tightened up around her foot making her flinch "Both of us are going to die! Connie, just fucking let go of me! I can fight it!" She shouted furiously and as she was about to resist, someone suddenly came and sliced the titan's nape and hands in one blow. The guy hung beside them with his hood covering his face, but Hoshino recognised the guy's ring on his hand, it was the same ring she has on her finger, no doubt the guy was Bertholdt.
"We're saved..." Connie whispered in relief.
Bertholdt then pulled out his hood for the two to be greeted by a death stare "What do you guys think you're doing?" He asked, looking down at their position and they quickly realized what he meant making Connie gently give Hoshino to Bertholdt while holding a nervous smile.
Connie scratched his head "Her Vertical Maneuver broke off... And it would be bad if I didn't protect her from the steam..." He explained in which Bertholdt just nodded and went away with Hoshino clinging onto him.
She stared at her boyfriend, he held a serious yet guilty look on his face but something caught her attention the most, it was the scars under his eyes "What happened to your eyes?"
"Slight scratches and burn scars... I was with some of the Garrison soldiers when the titan appeared. Its steam was burning hot..."
They flew using the Vertical Maneuver to the headquarters and all of the soldiers were in panic. As they were assigned to their designated tasks, they all ran around in panic and hurry, others curled up in a ball, others threw up, and some are able to keep their composure.
"They're really having it hard..." Bertholdt stated as he watched someone panic in the corner of the room while he wraps bandages on his girlfriend's leg that the titan gripped, it's fingers were marked on her leg and it shows to be kinda swollen.
The girl sighs "I can't blame them... Most of the people who are out of it right now are those who haven't encountered a titan before."
After their preparation, they were assigned to different groups but Hoshino was moved to the rear along with Mikasa. As they set off, she could already see the titans entering the outer gate, she looked at the residents and saw a titan walking towards them so she went to it and flew around it, slicing it's nape with ease.
"Hoshino! Don't set off on your own!" The leader shouted at her as they positioned themselves around the evacuating residents.
They went around killing off titans for minutes, some got eaten and some got injured, countless titans were attracted by the number of people evacuating. But despite the time they've bought, it looked like the residents still haven't entered the inner gate and this caught Hoshino's attention, making her land on top of a house.
She stared in disbelief at the carriage who was blocking the gate, preventing the people from evacuating. It looked like the owner of the carriage didn't have any intentions on moving it whatsoever, this made Hoshino furious.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing, pigshit?!" She shouted which earned a look from the owner "Don't you realize what you're doing?! People are dying out there! My friends are fighting, ready to sacrifice their lives for these people to flee! And yet you're blocking their only way to evacuate?!" She said before dropping down in the middle of the residents. They all made way for her to look at the man clearly.
"Of course! You all have been eating free meals for centuries! It's your job to sacrifice yourselves and protect us! Don't act so full of yourself–!" The man cut his sentence off as a blade suddenly got thrown towards him, it missed him by only one speck almost cutting his arm.
Hoshino stared with a shocked face before looking beside her where the blade came from and it was Shallie, usually she's able to keep her cool but this time her aura was different, she was on edge.
She had a blank expression on her face "I missed..." She muttered sarcastically before grabbing her other blade and took it off from it's handle "I figured you wouldn't need an arm." She told the man who was now drenched in his own sweat, staring at the girl in terror "Which would you prefer? No arm or no carriage?"
"Is this how you treat the residents?!"
"Not really... Specifically just you." She responded before raising the blade and attempted to throw it to him when Mikasa suddenly appeared and held the girl's hand, stopping her.
The Ackerman gently put the blonde girl's hand down "I'll handle this."
It only took one deep breath for Shallie to regain her composure, and just like that she was back to her old normal self. She then looked at Hoshino insinuating that they should get back to work making the black haired girl nod.
They shot their Vertical Maneuver at a house and flew away from the crowd "Did something happen? It should be something really bad since you don't normally lose your cool like that..." Hoshino asked the blonde girl.
Shallie looked straight ahead, not giving Hoshino a look "Everyone in my team is dead, Damian's limbs were torn off, Shoko got dismembered and eaten, Franz got his body bitten in half, and Hannah is out of it, she wouldn't leave Franz's body. If the residents have evacuated sooner... Then they would've still been alive." She stated, earning a horrified look from Hoshino while they flew between houses "Armin's team also got wiped out, he's the only one that survived..." She said, sounding more devastated.
The black haired girl widened her eyes in shock "So that means Eren is dead?!"
Shallie gave her a look before looking back ahead of them "...yeah" she responded quietly before separating routes with her "Don't die, okay? I'll see you later!" She shouted as she flew away towards the middle guard.
Hoshino always looked at Shallie as someone who rarely talked about herself but she appears to know a lot. This led everyone including her to have trouble understanding her, they don't even know much about her life, but despite that fact, she did make friends with everyone.
After the rear guards bought enough time for the residents to finally evacuate after two hours of bloodshed, the retreat bell finally rang in which Hoshino immediately responded to it by climbing the walls without checking her equipment, and so she ran out of gas while in the middle of climbing making her just hang there by just only the hook that's attached to the wall.
She hel
d a horrified look on her face as she processed what just happened "No no no no..."