The World Outside the Walls

4th November, 06:00

"Wake up, Hange!"

The clock in the dormitory rang, signalling six o'clock in the morning. Hange groaned as Sasha vigorously shook the sheets they were wrapped in. They raked one hand through their hair in a futile attempt to tame it and fumbled around for their glasses with the other. Soon enough, they felt the cold metal frames sliding across their temples, and their vision sharpened to find Connie grinning up at them as he straightened their glasses across their face.

"Thanks, Connie," they beamed. "Morning to both of you. Energetic at the crack of dawn as usual, hey?"

"Breakfast is soon!" Sasha bellowed in typical fashion. "I need help with my shoelaces so I can get to the dining hall and eat now!"

The four-year-old ran around with her shoes slipped onto her hands like gloves. Connie mirrored her and began crawling up on all fours to the beds of the other children in their dormitory with loud clomps and roaring at them, earning a chorus of squeals and groans. Hange giggled despite their tiredness, and after getting dressed, they managed to catch Sasha mid-lap around the dormitory in order to put her shoes on properly.

"You two are so silly. If you want to learn how to tie your shoes, you should first know what part of your body they're supposed to go on." Sasha laughed, squirming in Hange's arms as they sat her down on the bed. "There's two ways you can do it, but I think it's easier if you make bunnies with them. See?" They demonstrated on the younger girl's shoes.

When they stood back up, they caught eyes with Moblit, who was straightening Nifa and Furlan's jackets on the other end of the dormitory. He smiled at them in greeting, and they returned it.

Waking up was always one of the most hectic parts of the day, given that it involved being in the same room as half of the orphanage's children at once. It could even be a little stressful at times, since Hange, as the eldest child in their dormitory, was partly responsible for corralling all the other children into getting dressed and making their way to the dining hall without going astray. But every day, they all somehow made it successfully into the dining hall, where the majority of the other dormitory's children already were. Hange never claimed to be as good at their responsibilities as the elder children of the other dorm, but they managed just fine.

Today, they took a single step through the door of the dining hall before feeling arms wrapping tightly around their legs.

"Good morning, Hange," little Armin grinned up at them as his tiny hands gripped the sides of their trousers.

"Morning, Armin. Did you sleep well?"

The boy nodded rapidly in response, his blonde hair covering half his face. "And I got dressed all by myself today!"

"Really? Without any help at all?" They asked with exaggerated surprise.

"He did," a lower voice informed them from their left. "It was very impressive."

Armin giggled shyly at the compliment before tottering off towards the table.

"Morning, Erwin," Hange greeted.

"Morning. You look like you slept well," he said.

"Mm, the same as usual, I think."

"He means your hair's a mess from rolling around in bed," Levi claimed from behind them in his deadpan tone. Hange turned to find the eldest boy of the orphanage staring at their head with an exasperated expression, as was often the case.

"Don't put words in his mouth, shorty," they retorted, but when they swivelled their head back around to face Erwin, they found his mouth had a playful lilt to it. "Seriously?" They whined. "You guys are so mean to me. This is why I'm the favourite!"

"Whose favourite?" Levi scoffed, and went back to finish setting the table.

"Papa's, who else? Well, maybe everyone's, if you wanna go that far. I'm the only eleven-year-old here who doesn't hold my age and intelligence above everyone else to bully them!" They called after him, and glared at Erwin, who had left mid-monologue to sit the youngest children down.

"Now, now, Hange," a booming voice resounded from the hallway, startling them. "You know I don't have favourites."

"Was only joking, Papa," they muttered. Typical that he was there every time they made a jab like that.

Behind Papa's legs, a boy with thick brown hair and bright emerald eyes peeked out, chewing his thumb.

"Ooh, is that the special boy I can see?"

"It is indeed," Papa smiled warmly, and gestured for the five-year-old to move forward. "You can sit next to me today, Eren."

"Really? Yay!" Eren smiled brightly and took off to the head of the table, attempting to climb onto Papa's chair instead of the smaller, lower one that had been arranged next to it.

"Honestly," Papa sighed. "No wonder he comes back inside with his knees and elbows covered in bruises all the time."

They watched as Eren struggled to haul himself up until Levi skulked over and lifted him with ease, dumping him onto the correct chair and no doubt telling him off as he muttered into the younger boy's ear.

Eren was getting adopted today, which was why he was being doted on a little. Though everyone was always encouraged to be happy for one another when they got adopted, a part of Hange felt it was a shame to see them go. Eren in particular was a bright personality at Shiganshina House, so it was no surprise that a family had already chosen him, despite him only being at the orphanage for four years.

Once everybody settled down at the table, Papa led them all through their usual thanks.

"Good morning, children. Let us be grateful that all thirty-eight of you are able to live here happily today, as always."

"Thank you for the food," every child chanted in unison before digging into breakfast with vigour.

Eren was certainly getting spoiled, what with Papa spoon-feeding and wiping him down whenever he talked too enthusiastically with porridge still in his mouth and spilt it down his chin. Hange heard Levi's scowl of disgust beside them, and grinned at the typical behaviour of their siblings.

"He tries to copy you all the time, yet never quite managed to pick up your table manners in the end, huh?"

"Loud-mouthed brat."

"I'm sure his new parents will be happy to have a child with such a large spirit around," Erwin commented from across the table. "Even if he is boisterous."

"Right," Levi murmured, and Hange directed their attention back to the conversation at the head of the table.

"If I get another Papa, does that mean I can't call you Papa anymore?" Eren asked worriedly.

"You can call me your other Papa, or your new parent something else, like Dad," he replied. "Nothing wrong with having more than one. The more the merrier, in fact."

"It's weird when people have the same names as each other, though," Connie said.

"His name isn't actually Papa, silly," Jean laughed at him. Marco nudged him hard with his elbow, ever the diffuser, which made Jean yelp and Hange smile.

"It's not?" Connie gawked at Papa. "What is it, then?"

"Zeke," Papa responded with an amused smile. "But I'm still your Papa, so I better not catch you calling me anything else, okay?"

"Gotcha!"

"Can I call you Zeke because it's my last day and I'm getting a new Papa?" Eren dared to ask, earning a chuckle from the man in question.

"Maybe when you meet your new parents at the gate. But don't try and show off in front of your other siblings, Eren."

"Sorry," he mumbled, before getting distracted by Mikasa and Armin waving for his attention from another table.

After breakfast, everyone over the age of four went to take their daily morning test in the classroom. Apparently, it was a difficult one, as most of the children were grumbling and murmuring whilst Papa scanned each test to collect their scores. Hange didn't have an opinion; they, like always, thought it to be as easy as every other test.

"Erwin, Hange, Levi. Congratulations, all three of you have full marks!"

Hange grinned at Papa's declaration, expecting nothing less. If anything, they wished the tests were even harder, so that they could finally prove they were smarter than their two brothers.

From the moment they first began the daily tests, the trio had been battling for the bragging rights to be the first to achieve 300 marks. By the time Hange turned four, Levi already had similar scores to the over-tens, but they'd quickly overtaken him in a matter of weeks. Erwin had started a couple of months after Hange, studied as much as he was allowed to, and bested both of them within a week. The last hundred marks were a lot more difficult to acquire, and it had taken a few months before Levi's score shot up once more. Erwin and Hange had surpassed it, and then Hange had been the first four-year-old to make it over 220. By eight years old, they were in such close contention with each other that it was a matter of comparing daily tests rather than the weekly averages.

Typically, when Hange had finally scored full marks for the first time, it had been the same day that Levi and Erwin had managed to do the very same. In their eyes, they had won because they managed to get 300 without ever studying their errors. In Erwin's eyes, he was the victor because he was the youngest, and therefore got the top score in the fewest amount of completed tests. In Levi's eyes, it was a draw, and he didn't care anyway because the tests weren't a matter of intelligence, but memorising patterns, and competing was pointless. Hange thought that was a bit dramatic considering all the effort he had put into surpassing them so many times. Nonetheless, all three of them had maintained top scores ever since.

"You lot are something else," Moblit muttered. The ten-year-old was a pretty high scorer himself, but still a couple dozen marks away from the maximum.

Miche, the other ten-year-old in the orphanage, hummed in agreement with a frown that could easily be mistaken for a glare directed at his close friend, Erwin. The elder boy raised an eyebrow at him, and Hange could taste the brotherly rivalry seething between them in the air.

"It?" Erwin prompted eventually.

"It," Miche agreed.

Now that the eldest children couldn't compete properly with the tests, the game of tag was their fallback for trying to best one another. It was one of the favourites of all the children in the orphanage to play when they were allowed outside for free time after chores and lunch, and so everyone down to the four-year-olds was well-versed in it.

Erwin, as usual, chose to take up the role of It. He was a brilliant seeker, often managing to catch every child within the 20-minute timeframe, despite not being gifted athletically. He made up for it overwhelmingly with his clever strategies of weeding out hiding children or cornering them in order to tag them. Over the years, Hange had probably devised hundreds of running routes and avoidance methods in the hopes that they would be able to win against him. Despite their boundless energy, quick reactions and improvisation upon being hunted down, it had been a couple of years since they were able to avoid Erwin for more than 20 minutes even once. In fact, the only person to have outlasted him in their recent memory was Levi.

The eldest boy of the orphanage rarely played anymore, instead choosing to spend most of the group games seated at the starting tree in charge of time. The times he had, however, proved he was an exceptional runner, and if he really wanted to, he could even remain undetected for the entire duration of a game of It. From what they remember when they were younger, he usually won against Hange when they were It, but if they saw him, he wouldn't bother to counter their chases much, and his wins against Erwin were never consistent enough to determine who was superior. Additionally, Erwin would accuse Levi of messing with his pocket watch's time whenever he did win, and Levi never offered himself to be It, so they couldn't even test whether Levi was a better seeker than Erwin or themself either.

As expected, Levi wasn't playing today, so it was up to Hange to attempt to steal the title of best runner.

They estimated it to be 17 minutes into the game when they caught sight of Erwin running about a dozen metres behind them. They slowed down a little and turned their head properly so the two of them could make eye contact. Now, the real game would begin. In three minutes, Hange could be declared the winner!

They picked up their pace again, flying across the stream's log bridges and making sharp turns around the shrubbery to conceal themself. Unfortunately, over the last ten years, Erwin had memorised the forest grounds just as well as they had, and for every jump he couldn't make or crevice his larger frame wouldn't fit through, he used an alternative route to catch sight of Hange once more.

Eventually, they decided to make a risky jump, cutting Erwin off for long enough that they had time to climb high into a tree before he could detect them. It took almost a minute before they caught sight of him checking around the clearing their tree was located on the outskirts of. They grinned widely. Any second now, the bell would ring from the top of the hill.

Their anticipated triumph was short-lived. Erwin tripped over an exposed tree root, yelping and landing hard on the ground.

"Erwin!" They leapt down from the tree and ran over to him. "Are you okay? That looked hard enough to break something!" If he had sprained something, Hange knew how to make a temporary splint, and could carry him on their back if nece-

Erwin's intense blue eyes bored into them as he clamped a hand down on their forearm. They had been caught.

It took only a second for them to realise what he had done, and they watched in dismay as he used the smoke gun Papa had agreed to lend him after his eleventh birthday exclusively during It and fired into the air to indicate that the last child - Hange - had been tagged. They scowled at him, but he retained his calm expression with a light smile.

"I got Levi with that one the last time he played. I wasn't sure if he had told you, so I left it as a last resort. It was close, but I think I got you in time."

As if on cue, the bell rang from the hill. Hange was devastated. 20 more seconds - only 20 - and they would have finally won for the first time in years against Erwin.

"Poo! Next time, I'll leave you here to die. You'll get no more pity wins from me, you dirty cheater," they stomped their feet in frustration.

"Tricking isn't cheating unless you falsely call time or a reason for the game to end prematurely," he droned on. "But it was a good effort. I've just about run out of ways to outplay you. You'll likely beat me next time."

Begrudgingly, Hange trailed behind Erwin as they left the forest. All the other children were waiting at the top of the hill, and the disappointed chorus that came from them as they and Erwin emerged from the trees rubbed in just how close they had gotten to winning. Erwin grinned triumphantly and raised his arms in victory, and Hange tugged them back down before marching away, clenching their jaw.

"Don't look at me like that," they told Levi as he fixed them with an unimpressed stare. "I heard you fell for the same trick. Thanks for the warning, by the way - not."

"You should know better than that by now. He always pulls this kind of thing. And you still could have gotten away once you realised he was reaching out to you, you're quicker than he is. Always be suspicious."

"Oh, shut up," they huffed. "I know for next time."

"That's the problem," Levi drawled, his immediate attention swivelling back to stitching what looked to be a bunny motif on Armin's blanket. "There won't be a next time. He won't pull the same trick twice on the same person. You need to be able to do it right the first time, or you're going to lose forever."

"Well, I can't plan for what I don't know he's going to do, can I?"

"Think of it first, then find a solution."

"I've got better things to be thinking about than that. Is that all you do, Levi? You really need better hobbies." Levi sighed at their response, and Hange closed their eyes, lying in the grass. "If it involves so much preplanning and strategy, he's always going to win. I'm happy just being better at the exams." They could sense Erwin furrowing his eyebrows in disagreement at their final claim.

"A mix of strategy and agility would be best. That's why I'm winning more often now."

"You didn't play today," Erwin pointed out, sounding a little further from them now. Hange opened their eyes to find the blonde smirking triumphantly at Miche, who was sulking a few metres away with Nanaba and Gelgar.

"I didn't want to," Levi continued. "And even if you disagree, you'd still be no match against Papa."

"That's true," Erwin's expression turned contemplative. "I've never caught him when It, and you've not been able to hide from him either."

"Hey, Erwin!" Gelgar called out. "We've decided on a rematch. Everyone but you is It."

"And you aren't allowed to single me out first tomorrow," Miche added.

"Interesting terms. Would you like me to roll around in the flowers so you can sniff me out as well?" Erwin replied cockily.

Miche huffed at him and said no more.

As soon as Levi called the second hand striking twelve, Erwin took off down the hill and into the forest. The other children waited five minutes before charging after him, and Hange was about to follow before they noticed Levi packing away his sewing kit and slipping the pocket watch back into his trousers.

"If you're coming, you better hurry up so we can make most of the time we have," they told him, shifting from foot to foot in anticipation.

"You know where he is already," he replied bluntly, and Hange smiled.

"One of us still has to get there first."

In the end, it was Hange who ended up picking the correct end of the forest to search. As expected, Erwin stood at its perimeter, overlooking the fence that lined the orphanage in its entirety. The boy didn't react even as Hange placed their hand on his shoulder.

"Found you."

"So you did." Erwin didn't turn away from the fence, deep in thought, and they followed his gaze. "I still wonder why we aren't allowed to cross this point. What the fence is meant to protect us from, as Papa says."

"I dunno. Stray dogs? Deer?" Hange theorised halfheartedly. "I just thought it was to stop the toddlers going too far from the orphanage. Or maybe there is something, and you'll see it on your way out once you get adopted."

"You know we're both a bit old for that now," Erwin smiled wryly. "It'll be the foster home for us."

"At least we'll go to the same place!" They chirped brightly. "I don't wanna live without you or Levi anyway. It'll be so weird when he leaves. We won't see him again for almost another year."

"He'll probably enjoy the peace and quiet he'll get without us loudmouths bothering him every day, as he calls us."

Hange snickered at Erwin's comment, but wasn't convinced. "I think that's why he's so quiet today. Maybe Eren getting adopted reminded him that he's gonna leave soon himself, and he'll miss everyone, even if he'd never admit it."

"Maybe."

Their conversation ended as footsteps came up from behind them.

"You found him?" Miche asked, looking a little miffed. He was followed by Gelgar, Nanaba, Moblit and Armin.

On Hange's left, they caught sight of Levi walking the perimeter in their direction, hand in hand with Eren.

The five-year-old pointed excitedly at Erwin. "Found him!"

"The game's already over, silly brat," Levi sighed.

"I still found him!" Eren argued. "And the smoke isn't in the sky yet, so it's not over, and if you let me have a piggyback ride we coulda gone faster and beaten everyone else!"

"You're all dirty. No way you're ruining my clothes for a game of It."

"You let Isabel ride on your back. It's not fair!"

"Isabel cleans up first."

"I didn't have time for that. It's my last day, Levi!"

"Oh, let him be," Nanaba chided the elder boy. "It's not like he'll get to when he's outside. If that's his last wish, what's another wash?" Levi turned away at that, and stared past the fence, the same as Hange and Erwin had been a moment earlier.

"You know, when you were younger, I recall your wish being to eat exotic fruits once you went outside," Hange teased. "Thought of anything better yet?"

"I never said it like that!" She retorted, flustered. "That's Gelgar twisting my words."

"No, that's literally what you said!" The other nine-year-old defended himself. "And then I said, I'd rather have them as drinks. All we have here other than water and milk is apple and orange juice, and we only get that on birthdays and holidays, and I'm bored of it. I hear you can make a juice out of any fruit - there must be a bunch more outside!"

"Has your plan for the outside world changed yet, Hange?" Erwin asked now that they were on the topic. "If I remember correctly, you said you wanted to raise a pet frog."

Hange laughed. They didn't remember saying it, but would be entirely unsurprised if they did. "Well, I still wouldn't mind doing that. There's lots of interesting stuff to be found out about all kinds of species. And just objects and inventions in general - oh, I'd love to ride a train, too! There's so many interesting things outside we'll never see at the orphanage. How am I supposed to choose just one?"

"Like the sea!" Armin chirped up. "I want to see the sea once I get adopted."

"That's a good plan," Erwin encouraged him.

"See the sea, see the sea," Eren repeated under his breath until he began messing up his words to the point that he became incoherent. Levi shut his jaw manually and held it between his fingers.

"What do you want to do when you leave the orphanage, Eren?" Hange asked, getting the short boy to release Eren's mouth.

"I wanna do everything I'm not allowed to do now, like get piggybacks with muddy clothes and call Papa by his real name," he declared with confidence. "And - and - and I'll see the sea for you, Armin, and I'll draw it and write all about it to you and Mikasa."

The small blonde perked up at that, his eyes shining. "You'll write back to us? You really will?"

"Of course!"

"No one's ever written back," Moblit mused.

It was true: in all their ten years living at the orphanage, not once had Hange - or anyone else, for that matter - heard back from a child who had left to get adopted or fostered. They found it a bit odd, especially when so many of them said they would keep contact, but...

"They're probably having so much fun at their new homes that they forgot about it," they decided. "The outside world is just so much more exciting than here! What do you want to do when you leave?" They asked Moblit.

He tilted his head, thinking for a moment. "I... I don't really know. I guess exploring would be okay, but..."

"Exploring would be good. Outside," Miche added.

Hange hummed in acknowledgement. They'd like to travel and see all the different parts of the world too. They had a long, long list of things they planned to do once they left the orphanage, they realised. Maybe they should write it down so they didn't forget all of it.

"You, Erwin?" They turned to him.

"Lots of the things you all mentioned. But first of all, I'd like to know what's past this fence. What we're supposedly being protected from."

"There's no supposedly about it! Of course there's something it's protecting us from," Hange argued. "Papa wouldn't lie to us about it."

"What could be out there that could harm us but not hop a puny fence?" Levi pointed out. Indeed, the fence only went up to the waists of the oldest and tallest children. "We could go over it right now and I bet nothing would happen."

"You're puny," they muttered, and Levi glowered at them. "Go on, then. I'm surprised you haven't before, with all you whine about it." He didn't meet their gaze. "Oh, you have, haven't you? What's there, then? You can't hide something like that from me, I'm your best friend!" They were suddenly desperate to know what it was that Levi had seen - if anything, indeed.

"I'd tell you if I did, you doughnut."

"I'm no doughnut. What do you wanna go when you go outside, anyway?"

"Survive, I guess."

"You're ridiculous," Hange rolled their eyes. "What does that even mean?"

"Survive against what we're being protected from," Levi clarified with a far too serious expression for the topic. He annoyed them so much sometimes, making everything boring when they were just trying to have a fun conversation instead of standing around doing nothing.

"You just said there's nothing we're being protected from. Make up your mind, shorty!"

"It's a good point," Erwin murmured, more to himself than anyone else. "I've always wondered about that. If there really is something out there, surely it's better to know and then learn how to protect ourselves against it. We could go past the fence all the time without a problem, then."

That piqued Hange's interest more than they were willing to admit. "Well, we can't do that from back here." They were almost dead on their feet from being idle for so long now. "Only one way to find out!" They stepped up even closer to the fence.

"Don't be stupid," Levi told them with narrowed eyes. They heard a sharp intake of breath from one of the other children - they weren't allowed to call each other things like that.

"Well, being smart hasn't got us any answers so far, has it? You and Erwin basically live in the library, and you've never come up with a single idea as to what could actually be beyond this fence. So... let's go and see!" They slapped one of their heels up on top of the fence without a second of hesitation, causing it to emit a metallic clang.

"Hange, wait!" Moblit put his hands on their shoulders and pulled them back gently, yet firmly. "You can't just do that all of a sudden."

"Why not?"

"Be-because - what do you mean, why not? Papa said never ever go even near the fence. We shouldn't even be this close, let alone go over it," he chided. "Plus, it's a bad example to Eren and Armin."

Hange glanced at the two younger boys, who were staring at the fence with curious eyes. They knew Moblit was right, as much as it frustrated them. Armin would tell on them, and Eren might try to copy later on and get stuck on the other side or something. Realistically, they couldn't do it right now.

"It's getting late," Levi stated. "Eren will be leaving soon. Let's go back."

With that, he pulled a protesting Eren back towards the direction of the orphanage, and the other children followed suit as Erwin fired the smoke gun into the air again. Hange glanced at the fence a little longer before jogging to catch up to Moblit, who had slowed down to wait for them.

"You didn't answer my question properly. What else, other than exploring?" They asked him again.

The timid boy walked silently for a moment, not meeting their eyes.

"I'd like to stay here, to be honest."

"Really?" Hange raised their eyebrows. "Why?"

"Well..." He hesitated. "Don't you like living here? Nothing out of the ordinary happens, but it's always a fun day. The food's nice, and we get to play and help each other learn. Everyone's always happy here. I don't know why I would want to leave, if I had the choice."

"Meh, you just want an easy life," Hange grinned. "That's fair enough, though. Even if it is boring."

Moblit fixed them with an serious expression. "You really shouldn't do things like go over the fence, Hange. And you definitely shouldn't decide to do it on a whim and go looking for danger. You'll get hurt."

"I wasn't really gonna do it, you know," they muttered, feeling bad for making him worry. "It was only a joke."

"You always say that when you're getting told off."

"Shut up."

Soon enough, dinner had passed, and study time was waived in favour of seeing Eren off. The boy emerged from his dormitory with Levi, dressed up in his leaving attire - a fancy beige outfit that stood out greatly from the bland white uniform that every child in the orphanage wore on a daily basis. He span around with his hand on his hat excitedly as their siblings cooed and praised his outfit.

"Listen, all of you!" He called out. "Don't think just because I won't be here anymore that I'm not gonna keep getting better at everything. One day, I'll be smarter and stronger than all of you and able to win It and Hide-and-Seek and get top scores on the tests every single time! So you be-"

His impromptu speech was cut off by Mikasa wrapping him tightly into a hug, his bright expression crumbling a little.

"Y-you better be ready for when I see you again," he faltered.

Hange could hear Mikasa sobbing into Eren's shoulder, and the boy buried his own face in her neck as he hugged her back. Armin tottered up to them soon enough, his bottom lip wobbling as he too threw his arms around Eren.

"We'll miss you!" The blonde wailed. "Have fun with- with your new family!"

"You're still gonna be my family," Eren sniffed. "Don't be stupid."

Nobody told him off for the insult.

Times like this made Hange feel lucky that they were too old to be adopted now. Eren, Mikasa and Armin had been shaping up to be stuck to one other's sides for the rest of their time at the orphanage, having been close from the moment they could walk and talk, much like Erwin, Levi and themself. Hange would never have to go through this separation, as there was a high chance all three of them were already set to be sent off to the same foster home. Growing up and seeing so many of their siblings be adopted instead of themself had once hurt, but they'd been sure for a few years now that something like this would hurt a lot more. It probably didn't hurt as much to leave as it did to see your best friends leave without you.

Hange wanted Eren's last memory of them to be a smiling face, so stayed strong for his sake, but the low feeling lingered as he walked out the door with Papa. That was fine. It would be gone in the morning. It always did. It was merely the low point in the cycle of a child getting adopted. And soon enough, they'd have a new sibling to take care of anyway.

As they started readying the younger children for their showers, Hange's glasses reflected a glint of something on one of the tables in the dining hall. It took them a few seconds for them to register it as Eren's treasure key necklace - the one he refused to part with or take off under any circumstances, because it kept all of his dreams for the future safe and hidden away, and he didn't want anybody else to see them. In fact, it was only ever forced off of him when he was showering to stop it from rusting. Which he wasn't doing, because he had left the house with Papa not even ten minutes ago.

"Seriously, Eren?" They exclaimed aloud.

Maybe he'd showered early before getting dressed to leave and forgot about it in the moment. That poor boy. He'd be devastated when he found out he'd left without it.

"Is that Eren's key?" Moblit emerged from the hallway, towels in hand, as he watched them pick the necklace up.

"Yeah. I can't believe he forgot it. Do you think he's still here?"

"The light was still on at the gate five minutes ago," Levi said as he and Erwin came out of the washroom. "You can probably still make it if you go now. Shower's free, Moblit."

"I'll come with you, Hange," Erwin offered, and they nodded in affirmation as the two of them ran outside.

Thankfully, the door was still unlocked, which at least meant that Papa hadn't returned without them noticing. With relief, they sped towards the gate in hopes that they could make it in time to give Eren his key before he left for good.

The light was indeed still on as they approached the gate's entrance. They'd never been able to see the end of that long archway, and the wooden door at the end looked to be closed. Their heart sank. Was it too late?

"We'll get in trouble for it, but if we call for them by the door Papa or Eren might notice, and he can get his key," Erwin thought aloud.

"Worth a shot. Hope you're happy to get stuck with the nightmare of kitchen duty for the next two weeks," Hange replied with a grin.

As they made their way down the archway, Hange began to snoop around the stacks of boxes piled up on either side of it, a tight fist enclosing the necklace. The storage seemed to contain mostly toiletries and spare uniforms, things Hange was aware came from outside, but never knew exactly where from. One box in particular caught their interest.

"Vaccines," they murmured, pulling out a long, thin tube with measurements along its side. "Not a lot, though. Maybe a seasonal jab for the infants or something..."

Erwin stopped his journey to the door and walked back towards them, glancing over their shoulder at the box and inhaling as if he were about to say something. He was stopped short, however, when a sudden crack of thunder sounded from outside, making them both jump and Hange drop the tube back into the box. From the gate at the end of the archway, the area outside flashed brightly, signalling lightning had hit in unison with the thunder.

"Woah!" Hange exclaimed, surprised. "Has it begun storming?"

"It didn't look like it would," Erwin frowned, looking back the way they had come. There was nothing to be seen; November evenings were as dark as the dead of night itself. "I can't hear it raining yet, either."

"Maybe it's just about to start," Hange reasoned as the two of them continued to the door once more. They wriggled onto the floor to squint through the gap under it to see if it really was raining.

What they saw next made them stop breathing entirely.

There, in the distance, a creature as tall as the trees surrounding it stood. It was almost human-like, naked with a grey beard but otherwise no hair, lacking genitals, and donning an incredibly unnerving facial expression. They almost didn't believe what they were seeing, wondering if they were dreaming, or that perhaps their glasses were so smudged that their tired brain had conjured up something else entirely.

Distantly, they heard Erwin speaking, but it sounded so muffled and far away to them, they may as well have had cotton in their ears. They were rooted to the spot, too terrified to do anything but watch as the gargantuan being picked up something small off the ground. No, not something - someone.

Hange didn't even have time to murmur his name nor cry out in warning before an unconscious Eren was guided into the monster's mouth with its hand, which was about five times larger than the boy. Far too suddenly, the five-year-old had been swallowed whole, save for half of his arm, which snapped off as it was caught between the creature's teeth and spurted blood as it dropped to the ground.

They stared silently, wide-eyed, for a few seconds, their mouth covered to hold something in - a scream, vomit, a disbelieving laugh, or any other potential offenders. Slowly, they craned their neck up to see where Erwin stood, only to find that he, at some point, had joined them on the ground, his head right beside theirs. Never in their life had they seen him look so horrified.

"E-Erwin?" They managed to choke out shakily, and Erwin's own wide eyes locked onto theirs. "That - did you see? That was..."

"Yeah, I..." his voice broke. "Yeah. Eren. It- it..."

They didn't have time to confirm exactly what they'd just seen before they heard footsteps approaching the door.

It must have been on pure adrenaline that Erwin shot up and dragged Hange behind one of the storage piles, because they were certain he'd never moved so fast before, nor pulled them up with such strength. Hange barely managed to grab their glasses mid-air before they slipped entirely from their face from the motion, and once they'd readjusted them, they peered beyond the boxes as cautiously as they could. They didn't dare look too far, the risk of being caught not worth entertaining in the slightest, but they could just about make out people in beige clothing, similar to what Papa and all the children who left the orphanage wore.

...Did any of them really leave, though? Were... were all of them...?

"Looks like it's shaping up to be another regular," one man said, sounding disappointed. "Figures. We're wasting time feeding these ones to the sample subjects. We won't find a titan power in deficient five-year-olds."

"Well, I never expect anythin' when they ship a young'un out," another man responded. "Though I wish we'd just send all the useless kids out and kill 'em off at once, if we know they're just regular devilspawn. Burn 'em in a pit together or somethin'."

Hange gasped at the horrific comment, and Erwin clasped his hand over their mouth, gently guiding the two of them away from their spot and back towards the orphanage's entrance, their path concealed by the stacked boxes. One look at him as they moved slow as a snail let them know he was also disturbed by what he was hearing.

"Doesn't matter," a third man told them authoritatively. "This way we get the adults out too, and give them an honourable path to volunteer themselves to become a potential vessel. We'd be stuck with them much longer if we made hasty decisions with the baby devils. It's an efficient all-round strategy, and you'd be wise not to critique it."

"I did not intend to come across as to question Marley, Captain Magath," the first of them to speak babbled nervously. "My sincere apologies."

"Do not step out of line again, soldier. Lead Warrior Candidate Jaeger, what are these fabled older devilspawn looking like?"

"Promising," Papa's voice rang out coldly. Hange mumbled his name against Erwin's palm, and the younger boy clammed down on their mouth even harder in response, almost causing them to knock into the boxes they were so close to passing. "The eldest three have had consistent perfect scores for years now. Their memories are parallel to that of warriors, or rather, someone who possesses the memories of an individual with a titan power."

"Promising indeed. Let's wrap this up, then. Ship them as soon as they're of age. Is this key one of yours?"

Hange and Erwin sprinted away from the gate and did not dare look back - in the panic to get cover behind the boxes in the first place, Hange had let go of Eren's key necklace. They could easily imagine what would become of them if they had been discovered and one of those adults realised that they knew what was really going on at the orphanage. They didn't really know, but they knew enough, and they didn't have time to unpack everything they'd heard right now.

They legged it up the hill, but when another crack of thunder and lightning boomed from behind them, Hange jolted and lost their footing, tripping and skidding onto the ground.

"Hange!" Erwin caught up to them, panting heavily and struggling to pull them up with his hand. "We're almost there. Can you carry on alright?"

The answer, as it turned out, was no. The disruption had caused their adrenaline to fizzle out, and the reality of their situation began to sink in. Hange's throat grew tight, and angry tears blurred their vision.

"Are we just... sent here to get eaten in the end?" They asked, not really wanting an answer. "That wasn't Eren, was it? It could have been anyone. I could barely see!"

It was with sheer hope and forced naivete that they hoped Erwin would deny it, but he had never been that sort of person, and was unlikely to start now. He looked at them stone-faced, save for his flushed out complexion and rapidly dilating and constricting pupils, which gave away his inner turmoil.

"Eren... was eaten." He stated with a slight tremor to his voice. "That's our purpose here. To be raised and then eaten by... by those monsters."

Hange screamed their lungs out.

4th November, 19:57

"Did you make it?" Levi asked as they trudged back through the entrance to the house, eyes downcast. He tutted, and Hange looked up just in time to see that it was directed at them as he looked them once over.

Miche peeked his head around the doorway of one of the washrooms to hear the answer to Levi's question. Moblit was probably preparing their dormitory for bed.

"No," Erwin managed to answer him. Hange avoided everyone's gaze as they made their way to the dormitory. "We were too late."

There were still a few children shuffling about in their beds, so they grabbed their nightwear and sped back to the washroom, shedding their muddy clothes and not bothering to shower.

When they returned, Erwin was waiting outside their dormitory door, and followed them in when they ignored him. The two of them sat side by side against the frame of Hange's bed, hugging their knees.

"Everyone got eaten. They never went to adoptive families or foster homes," they whispered, and their throat burned, hardly allowing them to get the words out. Erwin stared straight ahead, saying nothing, and they refused to look at him as they continued. "Eren, and Tomas, and Nac and Myli-"

"We're going to find away out of here," Erwin said resolutely.

"How?" Hange whisper-yelled helplessly.

"We'll escape before anyone else ends up... like that. With enough planning, it's perfectly within reason."

"You think we can outsmart Papa?" Hange sniffed and looked at him.

"With the right strategy to throw him off-guard, sure," he smiled weakly. "It'll be a big high-stakes game of It. With you alongside me, I highly doubt we'll fail. Though," he frowned, "we are at a disadvantage to start off with. Papa knows someone left that key. We have to pretend we saw nothing in the morning, or he'll know immediately it was us. And... well, you can imagine what might happen," he trailed off, standing and shuffling back to the door.

"Okay," Hange responded with a small voice, too exhausted and overwhelmed to take in what he was saying anymore.

"Goodnight, Hange," Erwin whispered.

"Night."

5th November, 04:36

Hange woke up long before dawn from a nightmare of Eren getting torn apart by a large monster's teeth. Shaking, they were overcome by paranoia, and had to check that all the younger children were sleeping safe and sound in their beds before starting to calm down.

As they stood at the window to gauge the time, they regarded the bolted bars on the windows in a way they never had before - and likely wouldn't, had they not witnessed what they had yesterday evening. What could easily be assumed a child safety protocol was, in fact, just another subtle way that they were caged in this house, and only ever allowed out at specific times.

It made sense. Enough time had passed for Hange to associate the thunder and lightning directly with the titan appearance, even though they didn't understand the logic of the connection. If children were outside playing in the forest or nearer the gate than they were allowed, they would certainly at least hear the commotion whenever a child was sent away. No exceptions had been made for someone to see their siblings off at the gate instead of the front door of Shiganshina House.

Padding back quietly to their bedside table to grab their glasses, Hange returned to the window to study the so-called child safety lock mechanism. Upon closer inspection, the bolts looked scratched up and jammed into their holes awkwardly rather than screwed in correctly, suggesting that, even with the right tools, it might be impossible to remove the latticed bars with from the window. No jumping down from here, then.

As the sky began to lighten, Hange looked up at the dormitory's clock to find that they still had an hour before they could go for breakfast. They sighed, wandering back to bed, and picked up an old scientific textbook they'd read to bits over the years in an attempt to distract themself from thoughts about Eren and the truth of the orphanage. It was a futile effort - it was still too dark to read, and anatomical diagrams and labelled dissections were not the sort of images that would help them pretend everything was normal while they were alone for the time being.

Pretending, even for just a little bit, felt like a waste of time. There were so many questions to be answered, and they didn't want to wait a whole hour - probably even more, if they were really planning to wait all the way until chore time - to start discussing it with Erwin. Hange didn't even know giants existed until twelve hours ago, and they'd read nearly every nonfiction book in the orphanage's extensive library.

Of course, it made sense that they - whoever they really was - the people in charge - wouldn't want the children to know anything that might help them piece together what they were really here for. Hange didn't like the idea that their reading prospects had been filtered to allow only a range of information deemed acceptable for them. They wondered how many truths existed that were blatant facts and ways of life for the rest of the world, but completely unknown to themself. They wondered if anyone else had ever figured out the truth of the orphanage before them, and what happened to them. They wondered how long exactly Shiganshina House had been running.

They once thought they knew so much. Their test results had been a projection of that knowledge: full marks. Everything there possibly was to know, Hange knew it. And if they didn't, they'd find out. It had always been that way.

They mentally kicked themself. Just yesterday, they had been arguing with their siblings about how no one really knew what was past that stupid fence in the forest. They should have jumped it. They should have jumped it years and years ago, and found out the truth, instead of blindly trusting Papa's rules. They'd been complacent in this cover-up, and because of that, they knew nothing at all.

Rummaging as quietly in their bedside drawer as they could, Hange grabbed a pencil - chewed almost to the nib - and leaned back against the window, flipping through the textbook. After some contemplation, they slowly tore out one of the mostly blank back pages and stuck it somewhere in the middle. On it, they drew a rough estimation of the layout of the land surrounding the house.

It was pathetically sparse - the house, the hill, the forest, and then the fence, with the gate to the north of the house's entrance on the fence line. Just circles within circles. Containment areas that they had to breach one by one to escape. It would be nice if they knew how many people were behind that archway door on a normal day, when a child wasn't getting sent out, but they weren't sure how to find that out. It wasn't worth sneaking up there again, unless it truly was a last resort.

Their musing was interrupted by the shuffling of Petra's bed. Hange stealthily made their way back under their duvet as quickly as they could, keeping the book under the covers with them. They still weren't ready to keep a charade of innocence and naivete up yet, so feigned sleep as the early risers began to wake, mentally preparing for the day.

At breakfast, it was difficult to watch the other children laugh and run around, oblivious to the looming dangers they faced outside the orphanage. While Hange tended to wear their emotions on their sleeve, they were able to mask well enough when they focused. Seeing Erwin as stonefaced and charming as he always was reminded them to project their usual joyful and energetic self enough that any sense of something off could just be attributed to Eren leaving the day prior. They were, at the very least, more upbeat than Mikasa and Armin, the latter of which was patting his sister gently on the back at breakfast in an attempt to ease her poorly-disguised sniffling.

Hange couldn't look at the two of them for long. The four-year-olds didn't even realise just how permanent their separation was now. Eren wouldn't write Armin. Nobody ever wrote, because they'd all died the moment they walked out that door.

Loud clanging from Oluo spilling his glass onto his plate at the other end of the table brought Hange out of their downward spiral before it went too far. They shook themself off. They couldn't afford to get distracted. Not here, not now, and certainly not during the daily test. They'd gotten full marks without fault for several years consecutively. If they failed to do so again today, it would be immediately apparent to Papa that they had seen what happened at the gate.

Failure was not an option. Not with this. They would have to get it right the first time.

Hange didn't believe in higher beings, but they thanked every god they'd read of when their test marks were announced with Erwin and Levi's and accompanied with praise as per usual. It felt like a miracle. They felt like dying. But they were relieved, really. If they could get through the tests half-distracted by the secret doom cloud following them around, they might actually be able to pull this escape off without Papa finding out.

To their irritation, they were working separately from Erwin during chores, and had to wait all the way until after lunch to meet with him. As soon as free time started, they walked well into the forest before they could be corralled into Hide-and-Seek, waiting for Erwin at the fence with their book in hand.

"Did you sleep?" Erwin asked when he arrived.

"Somehow. Woke up early, though," they told him, and shared their discovery about the windows.

There was no point in asking Erwin whether he'd slept. The bags around his eyes were far too pronounced.

"I imagine there's a lot of systems in place to subtly keep everyone here under control until they're... until they leave," Erwin said once Hange paused their rambling to breathe. "But right now, I think we should have a proper discussion about what exactly we heard last night."

"Yes, of course!" Hange blinked and refocused. "Can we start with the fact that giants are real?"

"We can." Erwin pulled out a piece of paper from the inside of his cardigan and angled it towards them.

As their eyes scanned it, they realised it was a word-for-word transcript of the conversation they had overheard at the gate.

"Incredible," they whispered in awe. "You really remembered every word?"

"It will be missing information like tone of voice and perceived emotions or intentions, but I hope this will be useful to dissect. In fact, we can surmise an alternate name for the giants from this, to start with."

Hange read the first few lines of the transcript, and it didn't take them long to see what he meant. "Titan? If what they're looking for is a titan power, and there's giants, that must be what they call them."

"They're called that in the Greek mythology books, too," Erwin said.

"Oh, the books!" Hange remembered. "How much do you think they're hiding from us? How much of what we know life to be do you think is actually accurate? Because I bet you the-"

"Hange," Erwin stressed. "I know there's a lot of things to think over. Our entire lives have been a lie, and there's issues all around us. I haven't stopped thinking about it since yesterday. But we really need to focus on this first. Understand the conversation, understand the truth of the orphanage, then figure out how to escape," he raised three fingers in tandem with each step of his plan for their discussion.

Hange sighed. Conversations weren't things that could just be scripted together. Hange worked much better bouncing spontaneous ideas off people and mentioning things as they remembered them, partly because if they thought of it then it might be connected to what someone else was saying, and partly because they would forget it otherwise.

"Fine," they relented, because this wasn't the time to be arguing with Erwin about social conventions. "What's a titan power, then?"

Erwin pondered their question for a moment as they both looked over the script. "It's not exactly clear from what we heard. But it's something one of us might have, and they don't know who. Whatever it is, they want it enough to... do all of this. It's a lot of effort. To even have us unaware of what they want. That, I don't know the reason for either."

"Something they can't identify by just looking at us," Hange mused. "And doesn't show up in any blood tests we know of either. Or this would all be a waste of time. Unless it manifests later in life? But then they would do regular blood tests. We have them for the vaccines, but only as very young children, and just some of the eleven-year-olds, if they stick around that long."

"It is stra-"

"There were vaccines at the gate," Hange remembered. "Or at least I thought. Maybe they were actually for blood tests. There weren't very many of them."

Erwin frowned, looking over the transcript. "I'm not sure. But Papa did say that someone with a titan power would possess a certain type of memory. At least, it's something significant enough to differentiate them from a normal child."

"The tests," Hange realised. "High scorers. Papa mentioned us. They think we have the best chance of giving them a titan power because we have full marks. It must be related."

"Yes. They're testing us, but never in the way we thought. It's clever." Erwin was quiet for a moment, and Hange tilted their head in questioning, waiting for him to continue.

"What are you thinking?" They asked when he didn't.

He sighed. "I understand why they would keep us in the dark. If the person they're looking for is intended to be eaten, and they figured out they were special, they'd likely do whatever they could to avoid that fate."

"It shouldn't be necessary for the final test to be something that awful," Hange complained bitterly. "They didn't even think Eren had it in the first place, and he still got eaten."

They didn't think they'd stop being upset about that. How horrifically cruel it had been. How terrifying it must have been for Eren if he woke up sometime during that process.

"He did," Erwin affirmed. "Despite being a low scorer. I believe there's a pattern in that those with the lowest potential are removed quickly."

"They still don't have to be killed!" Hange burst out. "Why can't we just be actually adopted and fostered if we don't have the power or whatever?"

Erwin sighed again, giving them a look that Hange knew was supposed to be of sympathy, but fell flat. They were somewhat envious that he was able to think all of this over with a cool head. The more Hange figured out, the angrier they became at the unfairness of it all. Eren was five years old. Just five! He'd done nothing wrong, and yet...

"There's probably a lot of complexities we can't gather just with this information," Erwin gestured to the transcript.

In reality, it wasn't all that complex. Both Hange and Erwin's fingers hovered over the word that the children of the orphanage had been referred to as. Devilspawn. No additional context was needed to understand exactly what those people in the gate thought of them, even if they didn't understand the reasons behind it.

"How much knowledge do you have of biology and medicine, Hange? I'll admit this isn't my forte."

"I've read every book on it," they answered. "But I can't say if any of it is relevant to this. My understanding of science has been broken entirely since last night."

"So is there... there must be some sort of thing that..." Erwin trailed off, puffing his cheeks out. "Those men seemed to expect something to happen when that titan... ate Eren. To reveal whether he had a power or not. But what could that have possibly been? I suppose it reveals itself physically somehow, but I can't see a relation between that and the way they're testing for it."

"Maybe it's a power only a titan can use?" Hange shrugged. "They are titan powers, after all. I dunno the chemicals or enzymes that a titan might have. Maybe it can react to the power and absorb it or something." They cringed. "Anything I could say about it just sounds so unscientific. This is ridiculous. Something as big as that titan, too! I don't know how they managed to control it."

"I imagine with a lot of careful planning," Erwin pored over the transcript. "This last part is the only thing that doesn't fit perfectly with what we know right now." He pointed to the dialogue he was referring to. "What do you suppose a vessel is?"

"A potential vessel," Hange muttered. "Volunteer... adults as well..."

"It suggest that whatever potentially makes us different from those people out there - regardless of titan power - there's adults that are the same as us. They must be controlled in some way as well..." Erwin mused as they tried to muster the collective knowledge of everything they'd ever read in the library in a desperate attempt to propose some sort of theory. "And to be able to choose to become a vessel... something disguised as a way for them to elevate their status, but really just gets rid of them..."

"Erwin!" Hange gasped.

"What?" He said immediately, wide-eyed and attentive.

Hange stared at him for a moment, tears welling up. "This is probably insane," they said shakily. "But what if the titans are the vessels?"

Erwin stared at them. "That would imply-"

"That those people could become titans."

"Hange-"

"I know!" They cried. "I know. But they... it looked like a person, Erwin, it really did. Too much like a person. Maybe there's some sort of experimental medicine that-" They cut themself off.

"I don't think they were sentient, Hange," Erwin told them uneasily.

"They weren't vaccines," they ignored him. "That was probably the drug they gave someone to - to transform them or something."

"That's..."

"Insane, I know, I told you. And it doesn't make any sense with the scientific knowledge we have in the library - that amount of mass - they must be very light to appear that big on the outside if you apply the theory of equivalent exchange. Perhaps they use the brain for that too, if those people don't end up becoming-"

"Hange," Erwin kept his voice steady. "Do you really think those people could become titans?"

"It's the best thing I can think of right now," they said heavily. "Even if the logistics behind it are shaky. But if they're describing those people as being vessels for something, it has to be the titan power. If they think a child has it, and they can't extract it from blood or anything like that, then the only way they could transfer the power is by consumption... of a sort." They winced. "And if they keep the drugs that make them into titans behind the gate, transporting them wouldn't be an issue."

"...That implies that we could also become titans," he said carefully, and Hange nodded rapidly. "I doubt they'd keep something like that within our reach. What if someone at the orphanage accidentally injected themselves?"

"It's not within our reach," they pointed out. "We're not supposed to be able to access beyond the gate, and it's always locked anyway. Besides, I only saw the injecting tubes in there. They might keep the actual liquid farther away."

"I suppose that makes it an unnatural set of coincidences if someone was able to find both of those, apply the liquid in the tube, and administer it, all in the time while Papa is sending another child away," Erwin mused, "Although, if that person knew what they were doing..."

"They might have a titan power," Hange finished his sentence, and then shot upright again from their slumped position over the page. "Oh! Maybe you retain some intelligence if you have a titan power and become a titan, and you can stay sentient and use whatever your power is - or the power is that you are sentient! And then you could run away and fight anybody who tries to stop you."

"Right," Erwin breathed out heavily. "This sounds absurd enough that you could find it in one of those superhero comics in the library."

"Maybe you should go and check them for information," Hange grinned playfully, brain still whirring with ideas. "I can't say I've read those kinds of books - oh, yeah!" They picked up their book and slid the map they'd drawn this morning out from the pages.

"A map?" He questioned.

"It's incomplete, but yeah. We only know the orphanage, the fence surrounding the perimeter in the forest, and the gate," they traced the roughly sketched lines as they spoke. "Nothing beyond the fence."

Both of them glanced at the fence in front of them.

"Until today," Erwin declared, and clambered over it like it was nothing. They followed suit, a rush of excitement in their stomach despite the gravity of the situation. Finally, they would be able to see what was beyond it.

"This probably isn't protecting us from anything after all, huh?" Hange admitted.

"I guessed as such," Erwin responded as the two of them jogged through the forest, looking around them. "We won't wander too far if it gets difficult to navigate, but let's at least get out of eyesight from the fence so no one else sees us. I don't think we'll get out of the orphanage's grounds so easily, though."

"Yeah?"

"You said it yourself. This is a cage."

Despite Hange knowing that, they still felt disappointed as they soon came face to face with a solid concrete wall at the end of the forest, over a dozen metres high and so smooth it would be near impossible to climb. Presumably, it surrounded the orphanage in the same way the fence did, as an additional outer wall. Hange ended up climbing a tree to see if they could make out what was on the other side.

"You see anything?" Erwin called up to them.

"Trees. Sky. Not much. The wall's pretty thick, though. A couple of metres, maybe."

"That's fine. I wasn't planning on breaking through it."

Hange smiled. "Your jokes are getting better, Erwin! You can work on the tone next." He didn't respond as they jumped back down from the tree, occupied with drawing another large circle on their map to mark the wall. "If they're trying to make it so we can't go through the wall, our options are either under or over, right?"

"Yes. Digging under the wall would take too long, though. We don't know how deep the foundation goes, and the ground will be too hard to dig through during winter. It didn't rain much this season."

"We're leaving in winter, then?" Hange asked. "I won't complain. I'd like to get out of here as soon as possible too."

"Ideally in the next six weeks, before the next child gets sent out. We're nearing mid-November now, so late Dec-"

"Levi's next," Hange realised with horror, their heart dropping into their stomach. It hadn't even crossed their mind since they found out the truth about the orphanage exactly who was next in line to meet the same fate as Eren. "He'll be twelve on Christmas. He'll get eaten ne-"

"He won't be next," Erwin interrupted firmly, "because we will have escaped by then. That is our time frame for this escape."

"Okay," they said shakily, trying not to think about the obvious. "Okay. Winter, then. And if we can't go under, I guess we go over with a rope or something."

"Yes. The most difficult part of this plan, though, is going to be getting ourselves out and physically able to climb the rope, and without Papa noticing. That means we'll have to leave either at night or during free time. What do you think?"

Hange hummed in thought. "I don't think most of the younger ones would be awake enough to do something like that so late. I mean, some of them don't even make it through the day without falling asleep!"

"Yes, that's true," Erwin's lips twitched. "Day it is, the-"

As if on cue, the bell signalling the end of free time rang in the distance.

"Oh, poo," Hange muttered, and took off back in the direction of the orphanage.

This was bad. They were so much farther out than usual, which would make it easy for Papa to tell that they had been beyond the fence with how long it would take for them to get back. Passing the fence was exactly the kind of thing someone who had left Eren's key at the gate would do - Papa was too smart not to suspect them in such a case.

Hange hurdled over the fence and spared a single glance back a few seconds later to check that Erwin had done the same without tripping, as the lumbering boy was likely to do. Thankfully, he was cautious and took his time getting over the bars safely, so they carried on without hesitation.

By the time they got back to the hill, everyone else seemed to be waiting on them. Hange met eyes with Levi, who was sat by the tree with Armin and Mikasa huddled on either side of him, a book in one hand and his pocket watch in the other. He put the watch away and stared back of them with an eyebrow raised.

"Krista and Ymir aren't with you?" Moblit asked as he walked up to them.

They were too out of breath to speak, and shook their head to answer him. They heard Erwin's heaving pants behind them, signalling his arrival.

"Papa?" A shrill cry sounded from the bottom of the hill. Krista was running as fast as she could, teary-eyed.

"What is it, Krista?" Papa asked gently.

The three-year-old sniffled. "I lost Ymir in the forest when I went to get some sticks for our tent. She went away before I got back and now I can't find her!" She wailed.

Papa ruffled her hair with one hand and flipped open what looked like a pocket watch with the other, checking it briefly before putting it back away.

"Don't worry. Wait here. I'll find her before sunset." He strode off calmly, and Hange watched him curiously until they could see him no more.

"Where were you two?" Moblit asked as the rest of the orphanage chattered quietly amongst themselves. "Even Miche couldn't work out where you'd gone."

He didn't receive an answer, for they were lost in thought, and Erwin was still catching his breath. Although Hange suspected that he was stalling a little and thinking the same as them, because his posture hadn't shifted away from where Papa had entered the forest.

It took four minutes for the man to emerge from the trees, according to Levi. As he walked back up the hill, the shape of Ymir in his arms became clearer until they could see that she was sleeping soundly. Observing Levi's watch, Hange decided that the contraption Papa had pulled out didn't look much like one at all. As the younger children crowded around Papa and Ymir, they turned towards Erwin.

"That's not a watch," they stated with gritted teeth.

"No," Erwin affirmed, his voice coming out just as strained. "I should have figured. Papa has always been able to find us in Hide-and-Seek, even if we find a secret hidden spot no one has ever used before. I always thought it was because he's been here so long he knows the grounds even better than we do. But maybe he never needed to memorise it in the first place."

"Yeah. Even if you wanted to be left alone in the house, if Papa wants you for something, it won't take him long to find you. It's like he's able to know where we are at any time, no matter what."

It was clear to them now. Hange had been at the orphanage for ten years, and read almost every nonfiction book in the library, and they wouldn't be surprised if Erwin had completed the entire collection. They'd read up enough on the technology of the outside world, so it wasn't hard to arrive at the conclusion that the device Papa had held was one that could be used to track the location of every child of the orphanage. And that could only be done if they all had a constant marker on their person - most likely implanted within their bodies. Such a thing would be a huge obstacle if they were to escape; Papa would be able to follow their location easily.

"He's on the side of those caging us," Erwin whispered.

They'd known it, really. They'd known it from the moment they heard his voice at the gate. But the fact that Papa went out of his way to ensure that every child in Shiganshina House was kept permanently under his watch really sank it in for Hange.

Erwin spoke their thoughts aloud as soon as the two of them were alone in the hallway. "Tracking devices. That's a serious precaution, and one that's going to be tough to outmanoeuvre."

"Papa must know we went to the wall," Hange blurted out. "And to the gate last night."

"Not necessarily," Erwin raised his hand to stop them panicking before it got out of hand. "What he just did was intentionally show that he could find us to everyone, but only the people that are suspicious of him - us - would be able to understand that. A vague warning means he probably can't specify who went to the gate yesterday, so whatever he can see to show where the trackers are must all look the same as each other. So, he might know two children went to the gate, because he likely would have checked after being told about Eren's key. But he had no reason to check if we were at the wall today. If he had, it's pretty safe to assume we also went to the gate, because we wouldn't have gone to the wall before. And he would have confronted us directly, in that case. We're fine."

"I wonder how Papa got trackers on us," Hange mused, a little calmer now. "I guess they'll be somewhere on or in our bodies, but I don't have an idea of where. I don't have any scars I don't remember getting."

Instinctively, their hands were tracing up and down their arms as they spoke. Truthfully, they were a little uncomfortable with the knowledge that something had intruded their body and was sitting there without their knowledge for years - almost all of their life, considering Ymir had one at only three years old. It wasn't nice to know that once they found it, they'd probably have to carve it out somehow. Which would be a problem if it was embedded deeper than just under the skin...

"They probably put them in us before we got here," Erwin reasoned. "Before we turned one, so none of us would ever remember. We should work on finding a way to disable it somehow. Your technical knowled-"

"Yeah. That'd be better. I'll come up with something."

That sounded much more preferable to maiming themself. If anything, Hange knew how to break things. It didn't matter if they didn't know anything about the device right now. They had to try anyway, because the whole escape would be banking on them not being discoverable both during and after leaving the orphanage.

"Hange," Miche's voice sounded at the end of the hallway as he came into view. "Our clock's broken again. You didn't mess with it, did you?"

"I did no such thing!" They yelled back, sticking their tongue out at him.

"Come help fix it, then," he shrugged with a smirk and disappeared around the corner again.

"I'll be back," they told Erwin with a sigh, and made their way to follow Miche.

When they entered the other dormitory, it was empty, save for Miche slowly wiggling the grandfather clock to the side, and Lynne and Isabel, who were standing in the corner and glaring between each other and the clock.

"Which one of you ran into it this time, then?" Hange said with an exaggerated low voice and a raised eyebrow.

"She did!" Both five-year-olds yelled in unison.

Hange closed the door behind them and padded over towards the clock. "One of these days you're gonna knock it so hard it dents the wall," they warned. "And Papa will definitely notice then."

"Please don't tell him," Isabel begged. "He'll kill me!"

The door of the pendulum's case clanged as Hange jolted in the process of opening it. They winced, and took a slow, silent breath to steady themself. Figure of speech.

"You're being dramatic," Miche told her.

They didn't think she was being dramatic at all. Because that was what was happening, wasn't it? Papa was sending everyone here to their deaths, and keeping tabs on them at all times just to make sure they couldn't escape that fate. Awful, Hange thought, and tried to focus on the beats of the clock. It wouldn't be happening anymore. They couldn't change the past, but Isabel and everyone else that was still here would be fine.

Tuning out the bickering voices of everyone else in the room, Hange finally synced the pendulum to the clock mechanism. They stood up straight and stretched, taking a cursory glance around the room when something on the bulletin board caught their eye. Wandering over, they found a drawing of Eren, Mikasa, and Armin that they hadn't seen before, yet looked familiar all the same. Somewhere in their memory, they recalled Eren begging Moblit to help him with it.

Perhaps a week ago, they might have smiled affectionately at the sight of it, but learning the truth had tainted their perspective of everything at the orphanage. Even if it did look hilarious next to the triangle and two hastily-scribbled semicircles representing Miche's nose and fringe that Levi had produced last year, their mood remained solemn.

They stared at Eren's drawing a moment longer before waving to Miche and making their way back to Erwin. They went to call out to his turned back just as they rounded the corner, but just about managed to clap a hand over their mouth and dart back against the wall when they saw Papa leering over the boy with both hands on his shoulders.

"I haven't played It with him in a long while," Erwin was saying with a rather flat, inconspicuous tone. "Do you think you could tell him to join us for once, Papa?"

"I can't force him, no," Papa replied, his voice just as measured. "It's not like you to be missing someone when they go, though. You should be happy for them. They'll be going to a loving family, whether fostered or adopted." Lies.

"Of course," Erwin's voice came out smoothly this time. "It will be a strange adjustment to leave everyone, but we'll all be together eventually, and happy with our new families whenever we move on, too. Don't worry about us, Papa." It was quiet for a moment.

"That's a very thoughtful and mature outlook," Papa said eventually. "You'll grow up to be a wonderful person, Erwin."

The bell for dinner sounded abruptly from around the corner, making Hange almost jump so hard they would fall into sight of the very man they were trying to disguise their presence from.

"Dinner's ready, Papa," Levi informed him.

Hange heard the stampede of children making their way to the dining hall from various parts of the house, and took the opportunity to round the corner, grabbing Erwin by the arm and dragging him slowly towards the stairs.

"Come on, before all the good seats are taken," they said loudly.

Erwin shook them off and followed them. Hange caught his expression long enough to see that he wore a strained smile.

"Did you two go to the gate last night?" Papa's voice boomed out from the top of the landing, and they both froze midway down the stairs.

It was silent for a second. Hange wondered where the other children had gone to all of a sudden.

"No. That's against the rules," Erwin responded first, his face settling back into nonchalance as he turned back to face him. "I was so tired after trying to catch Hange during It that I think I fell asleep before some of the toddlers."

"You tired me out too," Hange quipped, not entirely trusting themself to face Papa with a strong mask like Erwin was. "I got a headache from trying to work out how to outsmart you."

"Why?" The boy challenged Papa as carefully as possible.

"It's fine," Papa said, a little lighter. "As long as you didn't go."

The two of them practically flew down the stairs after that, and Hange immediately tripped up over a corner of the rug and fell onto their knees at the bottom landing. They landed with a thud, breathing heavily.

"What was all that about?" They asked Erwin.

"Guess we weren't as subtle as we thought at breakfast this morning. I covered us. We're fine," Erwin said, and offered a hand out to help them up.

They were about to wave him off, but instead noticed the violent shaking of the blonde's outstretched wrist and fingers. Erwin followed their gaze, looking just as surprised to see the jittery movements when they looked back to his face, and Hange instead decided to grasp his hand firmly with their own trembling digits. Both of their hands stilled when conjoined, and Hange grinned reassuringly at Erwin as they used their free hand to push themself up.

Somehow, it was comforting to see evidence that Erwin was also scared. It was rare that Hange had the opportunity to calm him down. But they were both in this together, so it was only natural that they'd need to support each other from here on out.

Erwin returned their smile lightly, and the two of them made their way to dinner, much more relaxed and without the need to exchange another word.

6th November, 13:31

The next day, Hange practically skipped to the wall at free time, satisfied with the progress they'd made with Erwin. Just before bed last night, Erwin had picked the lock of the laundry room - something Hange was initially shocked he'd learned how to do, but less so once the boy had admitted he'd watched Levi do it to get fresh clothes after an extra shower once.

The two of them had taken enough tablecloths from the laundry room to tie together as a makeshift rope for the escape. They'd had to wrap the tablecloths around their bodies and sleep in their day clothes to hide them, and so Hange was in their usual state of disarray, covered in wrinkles and so-called breakfast stains, yet Erwin looked decent enough that they almost second-guessed whether he'd changed clothes. They didn't know how he managed it.

"This was brilliant," they said once Erwin arrived at the wall, undoing the tablecloths around their waist and placing them in the hollow of the tree they'd climbed the day before.

"It will be the easiest part," Erwin passed up his own smuggled tablecloths to stash away. "Now that we've prepared a method for overcoming the wall, the next stage will be forming a tactic to get here undetected. Assuming we'll be able to deal with the trackers, the focus will be on stealth."

For such a task, one person in particular came to mind.

"To be honest, Erwin... I think it would be best if we told Levi."

"I agree," he said, to their surprise. "He's a formidable escape artist. This sort of thing is his specialty. He wouldn't panic about the situation we're in, either. And frankly, it's going to be difficult to keep avoiding him and running off as a pair if we're trying to pretend to carry on as normal."

"That's true," Hange agreed. "Plus, he'll be efficient in corralling all the younger children into getting here quickly and sneakily."

"Yes," Erwin murmured. "Though, if you're fine with it, I think it'd be better if I could discuss the situation with him first."

"Why?" Hange frowned.

"We should probably start being more careful now, particularly with the trackers. One of us can talk to him, and the other can distract Papa, or at least make sure he's not checking his locating device."

"Or we could just get it over and done with now, since we're all here."

Hange jumped out of their skin at the sound of Levi's voice, almost falling over. He was perched on a rock just a few metres to the side of them, an open book in his lap and a paperweight being spun in one of his hands. How on earth had they not noticed him so close by?

"Levi?" Erwin sounded just as caught off-guard as Hange felt.

Despite having spent ten years with one another, Levi's ability to come and go completely undetected when he wished to still got the best of them sometimes. Exactly the sort of thing that would come in handy for them now. But still, of all the conversations for him to be eavesdropping on...

"My bad. Didn't think you'd wet yourselves at the sight of me," he snarked. "Or that you'd actually have the guts to go past the fence. Finally."

"W-well-" Erwin started, but Levi kept talking.

"There's a reason for that, isn't there? Now," he pulled on Hange's ponytail and Erwin's collar with equal force, bringing them both down to eye-level, and fixed them each with a glare. "You losers have been sulking for the past two days, ever since Eren left. You said you didn't make it in time to give him his key, but then you didn't bring it back to the house with you." Hange grimaced. "Then you go and hop the fence during free time instead of playing with the other kids like you always do. Out with it. The hell is going on?"

Hange and Erwin looked each other in the eyes (both tearful from the force Levi was gripping them with - he was surprisingly strong for such a tiny boy), trying to formulate any reasonable explanation for their behaviour that wasn't the truth. It was counterproductive, given that they planned to tell him soon anyway, so it didn't take long before Erwin sighed and caved in, giving Levi the full, detailed explanation.

He listened in silence, and Hange watched uncomfortably as his hand rubbed at his mouth and his eyes occasionally widened at each horrific revelation.

"Titans... powers... sent out to get eaten?" Levi muttered eventually. "And Papa's the one setting us up for it all. That doesn't sound good for us."

"Well-observed, clean freak," Hange glowered at his downplaying of Erwin's explanation, and he glared right back at them.

"And they're doing this because one of us might have something the beasts out there can use to fight with. To give to one of their warriors."

"The- yes, that's what the warriors must be," Erwin breathed out. "Soldiers who fight with the titan powers, and retain their intellect whilst being titans, possibly."

"I'm surprised you're taking this in so easily," Hange commented. "Doesn't it sound crazy to you?"

"Of course, and that's expected of you, four-eyes. Your theories are as good as fantasies that you've deluded yourself into believing are the truth," Levi deadpanned. "But Erwin isn't creative enough to think of a lie as horrific and nonsensical as this."

"That's just rude."

"Whatever. What's the plan, then? I suppose you aren't planning to turn tail on your own, so who are you preparing to take with you?"

"Uh, everyone?" Hange responded with confusion.

Levi scoffed and stared at them. "You're taking the mick, ri-"

"Levi, wait," Erwin interjected. The two of them made eye contact, and Levi shook his head.

"No. Don't lie to them, eyebrows. You know there's no way you're gonna escape with the entire orphanage in tow."

"What do you mean? Of course we are," Hange insisted. "We're not leaving them here!" A foreboding feeling started settling in their bones.

"Listen. If those people out there are resorting to methods like this, they're obviously power-hungry and desperate, which means there's a good chance they're at war. Erwin said that they're discussing wiping out a race of people who might be able to turn into titans like it's a perfectly normal and acceptable thing to do. Not only will this escape be difficult with getting a bunch of toddlers and babies up there," Levi threw an arm up to gesture at the wall looming over them, "but once we're on the other side of it, we're gonna be fighting for our survival every day. If you try to take them all along, they'll just die."

"Well, they'll die here too if we don't try to do something about it!" They sputtered back at him. "I can't believe this. You can't believe this. There's no way you'd be fine with just leaving them here for Papa to throw them out to their deaths. You understand, right? Eren got eaten and killed!"

Levi's eye twitched, and he tore his gaze away from them with his jaw clenched. But he didn't respond, so Hange kept talking.

"We've always been weird kids anyway, even at the orphanage. If we don't belong in the world beyond the wall, we'll just have to make somewhere that we do once we're out there, titans be damned. That's the only option. It's the only chance of all of us potentially surviving, even if the odds are slim. I want Eren to be the last one. No more," they pleaded.

"You don't understand-" he started.

"I understand perfectly. Thanks for your input. I know how much more there is to consider now. We'll start working to take future survival into account as well, rather than just the escape." On a roll, they pulled him up off the ground by his shirt collar and shook him roughly in their excitement. "So, stop complaining and giving up before we've even started, shorty, and help us instead!"

The boy struggled in their grasp with a wide-eyed stare before swinging his legs up onto their thighs and pushing them away with his feet as he pried their fingers off his collar. They both fell away from each other and toppled onto the ground.

"Maniac," he spat, dusting himself off as they both stood up. Erwin chuckled. "And what the hell are you doing, just standing there? Surely you're not going along with this."

"It's a pretty difficult scenario," the taller boy mused. "But Hange's right. Leaving anyone here is a death sentence."

"You can't save everyone," Levi said through gritted teeth.

"Perhaps not. But it's good to aim for a perfect game. Besides," Erwin grinned, "I quite like the sound of a grand escape plan."

"You what?" Levi echoed, horrified. Hange cackled. "Erwin, this isn't a game you can lose. You're gambling with lives here."

"And I'm good at gambling," he boasted lightheartedly. "Yes, there's a high chance I won't win, but the alternative is a loss in itself, and just as bad."

"You're insane."

"And we're quite good friends."

"It's almost certain everyone will die if you do it like this." Levi jabbed a finger at Hange. "Four-eyes will die. Miche will die. All those little snivelling brats who can't even walk or talk yet are gonna get killed. It's a near-certainty. Are you willing to accept that?"

"It's a grave situation," Erwin sobered up. "But that's not a scenario I'm willing to accept, no. I won't allow for something like that to happen. There's a way to do everything if you think on it long enough, and I've never failed anything I've set out to achieve. Now's the perfect time to put that skill to use. After all, we've got three top scorers here at once - a first, apparently. If anyone's going to pull off something like this, it's us. Hange and I are going to attempt this regardless of what you do, Levi, but three heads will be better than two. So, are you going to watch us near-certainly die? Or will you come with us and help everyone survive?"

Hange covered their mouth to hide their smile as Levi sighed and turned away, defeated. He was completely cornered. It wasn't in his nature to let others put themselves in danger without trying to help them first. That considered, they didn't know why he'd bothered providing a serious argument for leaving anyone behind.

"You know me too well."

Hange whooped and ran a celebratory lap around the two boys.

Walking up to the wall, they took a brief moment to digest all of the information they'd received from the conversation. They hadn't read many books on war - there wasn't much in the library that covered those topics, to be honest - which wasn't all that surprising anymore, now that they knew the contents were more filtered down than they assumed children's reading material usually would be.

Truthfully, the points Levi made were scary because they were rooted in reality. The challenge that sat ahead of them was incredibly difficult, and the possibility that the lives of the youngest children would be put at risk by bringing them along was terrifying.

But of course, their lives were the precise reason they had to escape in the first place. In the orphanage, death was inevitable. They had seen that firsthand. And if Hange were in Eren's position (and they desperately wished they were, that Eren would be alive and well in their place, that nothing horrible had ever happened to him), they would want nothing more than the very opposite of their fate to happen to the rest of their siblings. And, really thinking about it, they couldn't come up with a length they wouldn't go to to ensure this escape succeeded with full marks and flying colours, given how significant it was.

The sound of the bell ringing in the distance jogged all three children out of their separate trains of thought.

Levi frowned and checked his pocket watch. "There's still an hour of free time."

"I can't believe we have to run all the way back again," Hange huffed, and was the first to take off. They made eye-contact with Levi as they passed him; a direct challenge to race them back.

To their dismay, he beat them easily, knowing the fastest routes through the forest better than anyone. They were prepared to sulk about it for the foreseeable future, but forgot all about it once everyone was guided into the dining hall.

Waiting for them was a very large blonde man with an infant bundled up in his arms. Once Papa led them all inside, he strode up to the stranger and took the child from him before addressing the room.

"This is Louise," Papa introduced the little one he was holding. "And this young man here is Brother Reiner. He's going to be helping me watch over you for a little while."

"Nice to meet you all," the other man smiled amicably.

In all their years living at the orphanage, Hange couldn't recall ever seeing any adult other than Papa, excluding the glimpses of those in uniforms at the gate the other day. Brother Reiner, who had a square face and was much broader in comparison to Papa, didn't have a voice they recognised from that time, but wore the same light, carefree mask as the man in the room that they were familiar with.

No discussion was needed to understand his purpose. Papa needed help figuring out who knew the truth, and another pair of eyes from someone they didn't know well enough to predict the habits of was the perfect spy. Brother Reiner would be spending day in, day out trying to catch them out, goading them into admitting that they knew the truth.

Hange clenched their jaw with resolve. No matter. They weren't going to give him a thing.

They loitered outside of Levi and Erwin's dormitory, both boys beside them, and watched Brother Reiner get settled in.

"What a pain," Levi muttered with disdain. "He's in the centre of the three children's rooms. That stops anyone from going anywhere at night without being noticed."

Hange forced a smile as Papa glanced back at the three of them, pulling Brother Reiner's room's door closed.

Now that the men were out of eyesight, Erwin suggested that they go and study in the library. It was something that they rarely did anymore, given that they all had perfect scores. But all the other children who had to study would either be in the dining hall or the library's designated study tables, and so, with Papa likely giving Brother a tour around the house soon, a far corner of the library seemed like the perfect place to talk things over alone.

"I didn't think he'd bring someone in from the outside," Erwin scowled. "I was preoccupied with the trackers. We don't usually get another sibling so quickly either."

"A new child will have the scar though, right?" Hange perked up. "From the trackers. We could chec-"

"It could be a trap," Levi raised a hand to cut them off. "Yeah, we should take advantage of the new kid, but not too quickly. Papa's probably feeling pressured if he's doing all of this, so we shouldn't panic and make any rash movements like checking for the trackers as soon as we can. He's the one that's given us an easy opportunity like that."

"Only a handful of children are gonna be able to get that close to Louise without Papa watching them anyway," Hange reminded him. "So if he's planned for us to do that, surely he has an idea of who the children who left Eren's key at the gate are."

"It's natural for him to suspect the eldest anyway. It's not like the four-year-olds can run as fast as you guys, and how many of our siblings do you think would be able to smile like usual if they saw one of us getting eaten?"

Hange grimaced. Levi said it so candidly. It was easier for him, they reminded themself. He hadn't seen it like they had.

"Papa read through me yesterday too," Erwin frowned. "Must have caught me thinking too hard this morning and confronted me last night."

Hange looked away with downcast eyes. If Erwin's behaviour had been suspicious to Papa, theirs would have certainly alerted him. The thought that they might have revealed themself so soon was not a comforting one.

"You two are damn stupid," Levi muttered. "Leaving that key and waiting until Papa found it before running off. You could have been caught and killed so easily."

"It's not like we knew what was going on," Erwin argued with furrowed eyebrows. "What's done is done. We could have been caught, but it wouldn't be ideal for Papa if he found us, either. Hange and I just turned eleven."

"And?"

"And they won't send us out until we're twelve."

"Why twelve?"

"I've been looking at the order our siblings were adopted in. From the age of five, we're sent off based on whoever gets the lowest average score on the tests." He whipped out a small notebook and flipped to a table on one of the pages. "Eren's was the lowest most recently. Before him, Tomas, then Nac, then Mylius, and then Keith was sent out a week after his twelfth birthday."

"But why?" Levi asked again. "Always twelve. Not thirteen, not eleven, but twelve specifically."

"That's a good point," Hange frowned. They didn't really know. "Twelve is when puberty is expected to kick in, roughly, so for whatever reason they might want us before that happens."

"Or they just want the brats to start being physically capable enough to fight but not smart enough to question any instructions they're being told to obey."

"Do you really think children would be swayed to fight in a war so easily, even if they wer-"

"Levi," Erwin broke his silence. "If the children with the titan powers are being eaten, they aren't the ones trained up to be warrior titans."

"Aren't they?" The elder boy challenged him. "From what you overheard, that's still a possibility. Otherwise there'd be no reason so wait until a certain age to take the power away from them and give it to someone else. Why don't they just feed us all at once if that's not important?"

Hange cringed hearing the familiar words of one of the men at the gate.

"Perhaps there's multiple powers and they don't want the same person to get them," Erwin countered. "Due to incompatibility, or whatever reason it may be."

Levi sighed. "It's still easier to manipulate children into fighting by brainwashing them when they're young. Imagine they take you to the gate and they tell you that you can live if you agree to fight with them, regardless of if you have a power or not. Maybe they'll give one to you if they're loyal enough."

"That's insane!" Hange seethed. "None of us would ever agree to that."

"And it's not what's happening," Erwin added, flipping to where his transcript was loosely tucked into the notebook. "Here. They're using adults as the vessels."

"Vessels. Not necessarily the ones fighting." Levi grabbed the transcript and began reading over it for himself.

"You're being stubborn. If someone is willing to agree to eat someone to potentially get a power, there's no reason they wouldn't be willing to fight with it too. Especially since the alternative would be someone else eating that person."

"Have you even read this yourselves?" Levi sneered at them and jabbed a finger at the bottom of the transcript. "Possesses the memories of an individual with a titan power. Memories, not memory. If someone with a titan power holds a notable set of memories, surely it suggests they have the memories of someone other than themselves. As in, they inherit them from the last person to have that power."

Hange and Erwin both stared at the offending words in shock. Somehow, neither had nitpicked the wording of that particular line before.

"What probably happens," Levi continued, less passionately, "is that they send these titans out to fight for them, and though they're loads more powerful than any other weapon, they're still mortal. And if they die, no one can inherit that power the usual way, and... a newborn ends up getting it."

"That's not scientific," Erwin said.

"It doesn't matter. How can they know that one of the brats here has a power if that's not what happens? Obviously it's a lottery. And this orphanage has been open far longer than any of us have been here. It's a cycle."

"You're saying this power is... by some means, transferred to the body of a newborn - presumably when the pers-" Erwin began.

"Around ten or eleven," Hange interrupted, "children start losing the vividness of their childhood memories, and they become more fragmented, just like an adult's. If - I don't know how much you two know about the biology of the brain, but-"

"What do you think, science freak?" Levi muttered. Hange clamped their hand over his mouth, and removed it just as quickly when he bit them in response.

"Keep your mouth shut, then! In the brain there's these things called neurons that basically send signals between each part of the body so it all functions the way... well, the way that it does. If you want to do something, the neurons will send that thought to the parts that carry out that action. The bit of the brain that deals with long-term memory - if there's an excessive amount of neuron activity even after a child is meant to lose the details of their early memories, it would show... wow." They took a deep breath. "The idea you're presenting, Levi, is that someone could be born already having the memories of the person who wielded the power before them."

"Something like that."

"And additionally, the brain is almost fully developed by the age of twelve. So, any individual differences in childhood where one might be particularly good at motor skills or something and that part of the brain is significantly more developed, it would even out to an unnoticeable point by twelve. They can't focus on the children's brains too young because the memory might naturally be a bit better and they'd misjudge, or the kids might confuse their dreams and nightmares with reality. But by twelve, if there's still a notable difference, there's a good chance that's why. That's why they wait."

"The... the theory here is that when someone with a titan power is killed, it's passed onto a newborn," Erwin said slowly, struggling to process their rambling. "And that memories are transferred too. Is that the case when the vessels consume a power too?"

"Supposedly. We're working with things we don't have the knowledge to break down perfectly," Hange responded. "But if an active being is consuming the entirety of that person's DNA, maybe... maybe it fuses through a chemical reaction and compounds the memory parts of the brain. It's difficult to imagine, but if that was somehow the case, then I guess it's a possibility that they would inherit memories like that."

"It doesn't explain the newborn thing."

"It doesn't," they shrugged. "But that's the best I've got."

"It doesn't matter anyway," Levi told them. "The exact science of it all isn't relevant if all we're trying to do is get out of here."

"Understanding is the key to overcoming," Hange argued. "Perhaps this information will be really relevant, and we just don't realise it yet!"

"I still think the conclusion that the eventual inheritors of the powers are children is far-fetched," Erwin said. "I don't understand why that was your first thought. But if that was the case, and they had their reasons for it, perhaps physical and mental development comes into play, as both you and Hange said. And if multiple powers could cause conflict within an individual, maybe two fully-formed yet mismatched memories could too, as well as teenage personality development."

"You're overcomplicating it," Levi huffed.

"Brain development and seeing if someone has an abnormal memory is probably the most significant reason," Hange ignored him. "But I agree that there would be multiple factors for choosing twelve as the prime age of inheritance. And now that I think about it, if someone already harbours the memories of an adult, it might be that their brain doesn't go through the whole childhood fragmenting phase at all."

Erwin sighed. "None of this makes sense with what we know within the laws of science and physics."

"Obviously," Levi replied. "People find new laws of science and physics all the time. And I don't know if you noticed, eyebrows, considering how often your head is in the clouds, but the books in the library are all old as curdled milk. The most recent nonfiction text was published thirty years ago now."

"Thirty?" Hange exclaimed.

"So any of Hange's insane theories might have already been proven correct, and we wouldn't even know. We're living like cavemen, with no idea what's going on outside the walls, nor how far science and technology have advanced."

"That's going to disadvantage us when it comes to the trackers," they mumbled. Very reluctantly, they decided to leave the mystery of how a child at the orphanage could inherit a titan power and memories unresolved for the moment. "Okay. We've thought about this all we can right now. We need to focus on getting out, even if we don't know what's going on outside."

"But we do need to know how terrible it will be out there," Levi stressed. "It's a matter of survival."

"Then let's assume the worst and that everyone outside wants us dead and eaten by titans," they threw their arms up in frustration. "We don't have time for this."

"One moment," Erwin spoke up, and Hange nearly screamed. "Just so we're all on the same page. There's only a few dozen of us at the orphanage, and if this has been going on for more than thirty years, surely there can't be that many adults left to be testers. If we were the only orphanage." Hange nodded in agreement as he paused momentarily to glance over the transcript. "Which we probably aren't. There might be several elsewhere."

"And?" Levi mumbled.

"There are people giving birth to us all, somewhere."

For the first time since this all started, Hange was struck by idea that, while they sometimes wondered if their parents had died, the real reason behind their orphaning might in fact be much more sinister.

"They can't be killing off all the children if they need more to be born," Erwin continued. "If it is a cycle, like you said. Yet it seems counterproductive to try and cull the population, especially if they're trying to get rid of everyone at the end," he frowned at the written conversation, "if they also want to use our potential abilities as a weapon." He sighed. "Never mind. I don't know. I don't know much about humans killing others."

It was why seeing Eren getting eaten had been so horrific, Hange thought. They knew of death, that humans could die from illness or if they got too hurt, as the books said. They also knew animals could eat other animals, as part of the natural food chain, for survival purposes. But they'd never ever heard of humans getting eaten, nor eating each other. It was a cruelty they'd never been exposed to before.

"Awful things happen outside, but Papa doesn't want us to know that," Levi said. "None of the books go into such dark subjects, and the nonfiction books we can access here are just enough to encourage the curiosity needed for our brains to develop the way they want them to. We're unprepared for the enemy we face, and need to consider all worst-case scenarios and obstacles in our way if we're gonna succeed in our escape."

"It's good that you've come on board with this so quickly," Erwin noted, and Levi narrowed his eyes at him.

"Obviously. We're on short time. Children get sent eve-" he cut himself off abruptly, deflating a little and lowering his voice. "We need to think about these things and our life as we knew it compared to the truth we know now. It will give us information. I tell you all the time, if you wanna outlast your opponent, you need to use everything you've got in every way you can. That's the only way you're gonna survive and win."

Perhaps for the first time ever, Hange truly appreciated Levi's weird outlook on life and self-improvement. Many of the things he'd said had grated on them over the years, but now they were truly applicable to the situation they found themself in.

Briefly, they wondered what other parts of their life they could adapt into something benefiting their escape, but were sidetracked by Erwin's next question.

"You know you're next, don't you?" Their eyes nearly popped out of their skull hearing that.

"Of course," he replied without missing a beat. "So I'll be using everything at my disposal. Papa's doing the same. Bringing in people from outside..." he tutted. "Surely that disrupts the routine for the other children. Makes them wonder why things need to be so different all of a sudden. What a gamble, for such a stupid reason as watching us without needing to do it directly himself."

"Indeed. Our escape will need to be foolproof," Erwin nodded resolutely.

Hange didn't really know what to say. How could they help?

"What's the most important thing for us to focus on to escape right now?" They asked.

"The trackers. I doubt we'll be able to properly escape without them, so they need to be dealt with. But we don't know where on our bodies they are, nor how to break them."

"Alright. I'll look through the books, see if I can find anything that would resemble a device like that, and reverse-engineer it," they decided. "And I'm on baby bedtime duty tonight with Moblit, so I can look for the tracker then."

Those were two things they knew they could deal with. They knew the most about machines, and Papa was very particular about the children who could be on duty to put the eight - or nine, now that Louise had arrived - infants to bed. Erwin hadn't ever been put on that duty, and Hange hadn't seen Levi do it for a couple of years now. Moblit and Hange seemed to be the most frequent caretakers recently. They didn't know why, especially given Hange hadn't been that great with gently handling the youngest kids in the past, but now wasn't the time to question it. Not with all of the other issues at hand.

And so, after dinner, Hange went straight to the babies' room with Moblit to change the children and put them to sleep. They each took care of four infants each, leaving the newest addition to their family, Louise, last.

"I'll take care of Louise," Hange offered.

"Alright," Moblit responded softly.

He didn't move to leave, hovering a little, but Hange ignored him and slowly undressed Louise, patting her down and checking for any sign that something might have been inserted into her skin. She fussed a little, clearly unused to someone she didn't recognise handling her.

"Hange?"

They held in a sigh and changed her into her nightclothes. Any longer would look more suspicious to Moblit. They tried to think about it from Papa's view. Where would a mark be where no one would notice? Not just to the person's own body, but on anyone else's during shared baths or when changing?

"Hange, I want to ask you something, if that's alright."

It could be bad if titans ate tracking devices, might mess with their organs. Perhaps it was somewhere that could be cut out - or off - easily? Eren looked fairly intact to them, they thought, as they lightly combed through Louise's hair with their fingers.

"The other nigh-"

Moblit was cut off by Hange's gasp as they folded the shell of Louise's ear backwards. There, on the back of the baby's ear, was a red bump.

"What's that?" Moblit asked, peering over their shoulder. "A bite? We should get Papa. It could be an aller-"

"Papa said this was where the needle was injected for our vaccines. The ones we have when we're really little. Mikasa, Armin and everyone else had them too." They remembered asking Papa about it when they had taken care of the babies for the first time, seeing it when Mikasa had been rubbing at her ear in distress.

"Do we have one as well?"

Hange folded back Moblit's ear to see, and found nothing resembling the mark found on Louise. "Guess not."

"Huh. I guess they fade over time, since I'm ten and you're eleven. They were probably gone before we were old enough to notice them."

Hange tweaked Louise's ear one more time and felt something prominent beneath it - too hard to be cartilage at her early age. It was, without a shred of doubt, where the tracker was located. They felt a surge of triumph embrace their body. Finally, something had gone right, and without much difficulty this time.

"That's way smaller than I imagined," they murmured.

"What is?"

"The, uh, the bug bite. The mark from the vaccine, I mean," they sputtered awkwardly. They didn't want to reveal anything to the younger boy.

Though... shouldn't they? If they were going to escape with everyone, surely the other children needed a reason to leave in the first place, even if it wasn't as detailed as the full truth.

Moblit was one of the eldest children too, and though he was probably too timid and sensitive to be able to handle exactly what had happened, he'd understand the gravity of the situation when it came to making sure everyone got out successfully and safely. The younger ones liked him and took him seriously, and that kind of order would be needed for this plan to work, so having Moblit on their side would certainly beneficial.

Though Hange didn't know the exact plan themself yet, leaving that to Erwin to mastermind. In any case, they should probably consult with him and Levi before telling anyone else, they supposed.

It took Hange a long while to get to sleep that night. So much new information had been given to them in the span of a single day, and they really hadn't been able to digest it all in the moment. While what they really wanted to do was figure out the science behind the titans, it was as much of a dead end as it had been earlier, and they ended up doing a mental walkthrough of the library, knowing the vague locations of the book genres they'd want to start researching from if they wanted to get a head start on the potential technology the tracker was constructed of.

Even though the three of them had discussed that the library was unlikely to be all that useful in providing modern information, they still believed it was an important place to start. Even if their research was outdated, once they got their hands on the tracker, understanding how to reverse-engineer its technology would theoretically be as simple as filling in the gap between their knowledge and the device they'd have in front of them.

In some ways, this entire escape was constructed that way. The way they'd understood the world in the orphanage was vastly different from the reality they'd been exposed to at the gate, and whilst they didn't have all that information on what was going on outside, they had enough to understand that they didn't understand, and thus could be doubly careful in preparing for the unknown, no matter how unlikely it seemed.

The escape was a bridge between the orphanage and the outside, and, working both forwards from their old knowledge and backwards from their new knowledge, they'd soon enough be able to fill in the gaps completely. With that, a fully-fledged plan would be formed, and as long as they stuck to it, there'd be little room for failure.

7th November, 13:36

The next day, to Hange's annoyance, consisted of having Brother Reiner hovering over their shoulder. They were reluctant even to have regular conversations with their other siblings, not wanting Brother to know anything about them. While he was as much of a stranger as Louise, Brother felt like an intruder in their space, and blatantly stuck out as someone who wasn't in their mental image of what Shiganshina House was.

That said, what irritated them most was how much he did blend in, courtesy of the other children. Many of the younger ones were all over him, and a lot of them had tried to bring Brother Reiner along to Hange so that everyone could talk and play together. They accepted him without question. While it would have been sweet to Hange a week ago, now it was nothing short of frustrating.

Though most of Brother's time was spent interacting with the toddlers, from what they had observed, his attention frequently flitted to the older children, of whom tended to occupy themselves with each other now that there was another pair of hands to entertain the younger ones. He was specifically watching their behaviour, dividing his attention. Obviously, Papa had warned him that some of them must know the truth of the orphanage. Hange once again resolved not to give either man a single slither of a hint that they were part of the guilty party.

As soon as free time started, Hange kicked a ball as hard as they possibly could from the top of the hill. It rolled all the way down into the direction of the forest. They made a sound of despair and looked back at Moblit - who they had been passing the ball between with - apologetically.

"Sorry! It was meant to go straight up, not forward. I'll go get it!"

They ran into the forest, picking up the ball and peeking out from a bush. Moblit looked as if he was trying to spot them, Papa and Brother Reiner weren't in view, and Levi was packing up and heading their way from the tree.

Hange continued into the forest, past the fence and to the wall, where Erwin was already waiting. Once Levi joined them, they were quick to share what they had discovered whilst inspecting Louise.

"I never knew about a mark from the vaccines," Erwin commented when Hange had finished briefing them. Both boys were thumbing behind their ears, presumably in search of a bump. "And it disappears so quickly? Interesting."

"I knew about this mark for a couple of years. I can't believe I didn't associate it sooner. Sorry. We could have already been working on this," Hange bit their lip.

"No, this is perfect. Thank you, Hange," Erwin smiled. "Now we know the rough shape, size and location of the tracker. All that's left is to work out how to break it."

They thought on it a little. "The best way would be to experiment with it by cutting it out and inspecting it, but there'd be no way to put it back in when that happens. I could hide it behind my hair, I guess."

"What, and have Papa see a hole in your ear when he's forced to comb your ratty hair every other day?" Levi raised a brow.

Hange stuck out their tongue at him, but internally admitted to themself that he was, for once, right. Their disinterest in their physical maintenance had ended up a hindrance. It's not like they could change their habits now, or Papa would notice them acting differently, and both boys' hair was too short to cover their own ears, putting such a plan out of operation.

"Anyways, the tracking device doesn't specify who we are, so if we're careful, it'll be fine," the elder boy continued. "If we're far enough away from him and all the other brats are spread out everywhere, Papa won't be able to tell whether we're at the wall or the gate."

"Yet he's so confident he can come after us during a potential escape because of the trackers," Erwin rubbed a hand along his chin. "So much that he doesn't mind us knowing that he can do that. I doubt it's a lie. Unless-" his eyes lit up. "Unless it's a bluff to make us think that the solution is to get rid of them, and something alerts him if the trackers are broken in some way."

"Oh, that could be it!" Hange exclaimed. "That seems like plausible technology."

"What you consider plausible doesn't matter. We're thirty years behind in public knowledge," Levi reminded them.

"Stop whining, shorty, we're getting somewhere. We just need to find a way to stop the trackers from - well, tracking - whilst also not setting off any potential alarms in them. Mess with the readings or something. Electromagnetic frequencies are pretty weak in detail, but work in longer distances, which matches what we know about the trackers so far," they babbled. "They'll get worse the further you go from the main device, but I don't know how much distance we'll need to put between us and any pursuers for that to happen."

"And they'd be searching for us the whole time," Erwin added. "Either we cut them out or nullify them. And having uncompromised hearing when we're out in unfamiliar territory would be preferable."

"Of course," Hange said. "I'll be looking through the library later on for all those books on technology and inventions. Maybe there'll be some clues in there to make a device that breaks the functions of the tracker permanently?"

"You're the crazy scientist," Levi shrugged. "You figure it out."

They grinned at that. It wasn't every day that they got a challenge to invent something.

"That's settled, then," Erwin declared. "Now to find a way to escape with all the children cooperating, or at least not resisting. The main issue here is that everyone loves Papa. He's never done anything to wrong them as far as they know, so it would be difficult to persuade them to leave. They may not believe what's going on even if they're told."

"Even if they did believe it, which I doubt they will-" Levi raised a hand to stop Hange from interjecting, "we won't be able to take care of all the younger brats whilst escaping. The toddlers wouldn't be able to comprehend it, and we have babies who can hardly walk, let alone handle the separation anxiety."

"Well, we can't leave them, can we?" Hange huffed.

"We can't bring them either. We won't be able to herd them all to the wall without being seen, much less keep them alive beyond it. They're a hindrance both to us and themselves."

"Levi!" They scolded.

"You know I'm right."

Hange disagreed. Finally, it seemed a good idea to bring up the idea they'd been toying with briefly the night before.

"I think I have a way. About getting them all to escape." They paused for dramatic effect until they were certain they had both of their attention. "It."

"It?"

"Yes, Levi. It. Do you remember what that is? It's been a long time since you've bothered to join in, so I can't say I'm surprised."

"Shut up. What's the plan?"

"To prepare for an escape we basically need to teach the children how to run and hide effectively, right? And at the same time, we need to do it in a way that's not making Papa or Brother Reiner think we're doing something suspicious. Changing our daily routines would give too much away, so integrating it in a subtle way is our best shot at training them over a period of time. And then I realised that the games we've been playing all these years are teaching us in their own ways - It, and Hide-and-Seek, and even football. Where the daily tests have been training our brains, we've been training our bodies during free time, even if it's not being taught directly to us."

"And stealth and running ability are two of the main things we'd need everyone else to work on," Erwin added.

"Exactly. So, what better than a fun way that they're already used to? Everyone always wants to beat Erwin at It, but they never do, and they never learn how to. If we use that front and try to teach them how to win against an opponent that's both smarter and faster than them, it would prepare them for running away, and Papa would be none the wiser."

"Yes. That's definitely the best way to go about it we've got so far," Erwin agreed. "I suppose we'd need a plan of action for what you want the children to be focusing on while they're playing, then."

"Yeah. I think it would be best if you still played as seeker, just as you normally would. You're the smartest one we've got compared to Papa. Our aims here, whether that's mentally or physically, are to overcome his expectations and become unpredictable. Mentally, that's understanding the enemy, and trying to predict their behaviour instead of them predicting you. I know you well enough to have a go at that," they grinned.

"It's a good start. But when it comes to Papa, we're not dealing with someone we know anymore."

"That's true," they admitted. "But he's shown us a few things over the past few days. It's more about thinking on our feet and preparing for a lot of possible things, though. Adaptability. And even if it's not perfect, it should be enough when combined with the physical training." They turned to Levi, who was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed and his usual blank expression. "I think you'd be best at that, Levi. You're the fastest, sneakiest, and probably the strongest, too."

He shrugged.

"Well?"

"Yeah. It's a shame we don't have those monkey bars anymore. Can't do much about the upper strength training to climb the rope."

Distantly, Hange remembered where the monkey bars had once stood at the back of the orphanage. They hadn't ever used them; were probably too young at the time. They can't recall who, but someone had fallen and broken their arm, even with the padded area around it to cushion their fall, and so the monkey bars were taken away.

"I'm sure we can think of an alternative later," Erwin said. "If you're going to work on different things, we can split the children into teams. Escaping in one group would create one large target. Ideally we'd have multiple smaller groups, all with their own formations and taking different routes to throw off any pursuers, and we'd all meet at the wall."

"That's so excessive," Hange teased.

"There are no unnecessary precautions. The more complex, the less predictable."

"Fine," they sighed. "But that's your job. I gotta work through the library's collection tonight."

"Make sure you don't get caught by Papa," Levi told them.

"Obviously."

"Levi and I will work on outlining the training plan, then," Erwin decided. "We'll brief you tomorrow during chores."

Hange was mostly in their own head at dinner, mumbling a response every time Moblit prodded them with his fork during dinnertime conversation, focused on mentally mapping out the library once more. Papa would be in the library for a decent part of study hours, so it would benefit them to get there early and sneak up onto the attic level before anyone else arrived, where the heavier reading material was located. Anything on the ground level might need to wait until free time tomorrow or the next day, they reasoned.

They figured Moblit would forgive them for leaving him to clear their plate up as they raced off the second Papa turned away in order to stake out the library. Doing a quick sweep of the shelves on the ground floor, they found they were correct in their earlier assessment; in fact, none of the genres down here would be very useful for technological research. With that confirmed, they climbed the ladder to the attic level and wormed their way past several bookshelves in eyesight of the front door just as several children started piling in and making their way to the study tables.

Tuning out the mild chatter down below, Hange scoured the shelves that weren't in view of the balcony overlooking the ground level of the library, grabbing a few topical-looking books before settling in the corner and beginning to comb through their contents pages. They folded the corners of every section that looked promising, whether that was with mechanical diagrams or detailed engineering theory, and set them into order of relevance. Erwin would be furious if he knew they were the one that kept ruining the integrity of the books' pages, but they had no intention of telling him after successfully going undetected for this many years.

With their brief scan complete, they set to work trying to refresh and build upon their understanding of mechanical engineering and science technology.

About an hour into their research, they heard the ladder rattling against the half-propped open trapdoor to the attic. They tensed and hurriedly closed what they were reading, picking up the small pile of books at their feet and slotting them all back into whatever spaces on the shelves they could find. They managed to do so before anyone caught them; in fact, when they shuffled back towards the ladder, they found that it was no longer moving at all. Then:

"Hange!" One of the kids whisper-shouted from the bottom.

They opened up the trapdoor and peered down to find Armin with one foot on the bottom rung and his little arms wrapped around the sides of the ladder, pouting.

"Hi! Do you need something?" They asked.

"I can't get up," he said with large, watery eyes.

"You're not supposed to be able to," they grinned. "This is for the older kids."

"But I don't understand some of the questions, and I can't find the section on it in the study books, and nobody else knows the answers either!"

Hange weighed their options. They hadn't really found anything noteworthy in their research thus far. Plenty of it had been interesting, but none of it relevant to what they knew about the trackers. Ideally, they didn't want anyone to know they'd been up here, though, so they'd either have to help Armin up into the attic or come down to assist him with his studying personally.

Presumably, Papa wasn't in the room to help him, but he'd surely be back soon, and would hear them both talking on the upper level, which would get Hange in trouble both publicly for hauling a four-year-old up the ladder and privately for sneaking off to do some personal reading without him knowing they'd been there the whole time.

"Give me a minute," they told Armin, and descended the ladder once he stepped back. "What are you struggling with?"

Armin led them to the study table by their hand, and when they settled down they found he was looking over one of the final sections from the test paper a few days ago, the majority of which had red crosses scanned into them.

"This is algebraic notation," they noted.

"There's no ar-gee-break notation books down here," Armin said with a frown.

"Because it's too hard for people who can't climb ladders," Furlan murmured from across the table, not looking up from his book.

"I got the first one right, though."

"Did you guess?"

"No!"

"Keep your voice down," Nifa said with a finger to her lips.

Armin huffed and looked up at Hange helplessly.

"I can get you a book from the attic if you really want," they said, glancing at his marked test. "But it's pretty difficult to wrap your head around. It might be better if you focus on the other stuff first."

"Yes, please! This is the bit I'm doing the worst at. I get all the other stuff."

"Alright."

Hange went back up to the attic, mildly impressed with Armin's attitude. No one else under the age of six typically went over their tests for the purpose of improving their weak points. On top of that, Armin had only started the daily tests four days ago. The fact that he'd gotten any algebraic question right despite never even hearing the concept before was impressive, given it was by far one of the most advanced sections of the tests.

He was so determined to learn more and get as good as he could, as soon as possible. It reminded them of themself when they were his age, only he didn't have the same intellectual competition that they had in Erwin and Levi.

They became more solemn in recounting how they felt back in those days. When the most difficult obstacle in their life had been words on a page and the hand of a clock. Well, they supposed, time is still as formidable an opponent as always. Papa, on the other hand, was much more complicated to overcome than algebraic notation had ever been.

When they came back down with the requested book in hand, Papa had returned, with Armin half-clinging onto him.

"But I can't stop thinking about it," Armin's voice had raised again, much to the annoyance of Furlan and Nifa, who were watching his exchange with Papa with tired eyes. "When I know how to solve it all I'll be fine."

"You'll get it in time," Papa responded calmly. "There's no rush, Armin. A few wrong answers on a test won't kill you."

"But... But-" Armin was clambering for words before catching sight of Hange and running over to them. "Is that it? Thank you!"

"That's okay," they said with a forced smile, trying to pretend Papa's lie hadn't affected them. "Papa's right. If you go through the sections slowly, test by test, you'll come to understand it all eventually."

"What if I don't have time, though?" He bit his thumb, and Hange pulled it away from his mouth and placed the book in his hands. "What if I get adopted before I can get better, like Eren?"

They couldn't help their breath catching in their throat this time. Because the real answer was that he had no hope of ever learning, and that Eren, one of his best friends, was dead, and he'd be dead too if he didn't do as well on the tests he was worried about as he was.

But then they remembered there'd be no more, because they and Erwin and Levi wouldn't be allowing it, and Papa was surely watching for their reaction.

"Don't be silly!" The grin came easier than they thought. "Even when you're adopted, you still have to do tests, because you'll be going to school. You'll be learning for years and years, until you're all grown up. You've got plenty of time."

"Oh, right," Armin said, and looked down at the book. "I still want to get better now, though, so I can learn all the other stuff, too. Can you help me with these questions?"

Hange glanced over at Papa, but he had busied himself with looking over Furlan and Nifa's shoulders. Moblit and Nanaba had also entered the library, they found, and were sitting down at the table opposite the two seven-year-olds.

They sighed internally, and resigned themself to packing in their personal project for the night.

"Of course!" They smiled.

8th November, 10:13

As they'd planned, Hange, Erwin and Levi exchanged their findings and ideas during the next morning's chores. Hange was a little disappointed that they hadn't found anything notable last night, but Erwin didn't seem too bothered by it.

For today's game of It, they were to take it easy and split into two groups to teach mental and physical strategies separately, swap groups after a round, and then mix it up a bit. They were leaving the smaller teamwork until another day, although Hange got the sense the boys had compromised on today's plan rather than agreed. Even the brightest children at the orphanage had a limit when it came to overloading them with information, and if this was to be a subtle lesson disguised as play they intended, it needed to be balanced.

At free time, Hange led half the children into one area of the forest and began briefing them on how to outsmart the seeker, Erwin. They encouraged the younger ones to think about how to use the forest's features to their advantage and increase the effectiveness of any tricks they had to get Erwin to lose sight of them.

At the same time, Levi took the other group of children and taught them how to push their bodies to the physical limit. They swapped over after each round, and by the end of the third game, between faking footprints and running with the wind's direction to maintain maximum speed, the children could last longer and longer without getting caught.

Despite their opposing demeanours, Hange and Levi were actually very similar in their thought patterns and values, so it wasn't hard for one to take the other's abilities into account when teaching skills to their own group. Hange wasn't lacking in physical ability either - they were the third best runner only to Levi and Miche, one of the strongest, and had a decent enough grasp on human anatomy to understand how to preserve the use of their muscles and stamina efficiently. And while Levi always kept his cards close to his chest, they knew he'd played chess against Erwin far too many times not to know a thing or two about lying or outplaying him.

All in all, Hange was feeling pretty good about the progress they'd made in just a couple of hours. If they kept this up, the children would be trained and ready to escape with plenty of time to spare before their deadline, and then they could focus their efforts back on the trackers and actual details of the escape.

"Can I join?"

Hange was not expecting Brother Reiner to make such a request. His beady eyes were neutral, but his smile was as false as they could get, not nearly as natural as Papa's looked. They were overcome by a short, angry wave of hatred. They didn't like that he kept explicitly trying to force himself into their space. This was their game. He wasn't supposed to intervene. He was ruining it.

"Why?" Levi asked with a clipped tone. He'd give them away, talking like that.

Brother Reiner, however, was undeterred, and smiled down at him with crinkled eyes. "I want to get along with everyone, and you all seem to like playing this game. It would be nice to bond."

Hange glanced at the other two eleven-year-olds. Levi continued to glare at Brother, whilst Erwin looked him over for a moment before turning towards Hange and shrugging.

"Sure," the blonde responded. "I'll join the runners, then. You be It."

The other children looked ecstatic to have Brother Reiner joining their game. It had been a while since Papa had played an outdoor game like this with them, so Hange understood their excitement, as jarring as it was.

As they chattered amongst themselves, Erwin sidled up to Hange.

"This is good practice." He said in a low voice. "It'll work in our favour."

"You think so?"

He hummed in affirmation as Brother Reiner pulled out a tracking compass just like Papa's, and they fought down a grimace. Erwin was right; this was perfect practice for running from Papa, given he'd be using the tracker to locate them during their escape. Hiding within reach was never going to be an option.

Brother Reiner clapped his hands together. "Alright! You have twenty minutes. Try your hardest not to get caught!" He bellowed in an exaggerated tone that made the younger children squeal with glee. Hange, who was reminded of Papa's intended message in bringing out the compass, found it much more menacing.

"He'll probably be targeting the oldest children," Erwin theorised once they were far enough into the forest to be able to spy on Brother without him seeing them. Levi had already run deep into the trees with the others, giving them both directions and reminders of what they had learned. "He'll pick up the younger ones as he goes."

"Right. Let's keep them from being caught, then!" Hange puffed out their chest.

At once, Brother Reiner began charging down the hill at an incredible speed, and the two of them split off in opposite directions.

A few minutes later, they found themself jumping into a bush already occupied by Levi. They hardly waited thirty seconds before Brother appeared in the clearing and scooped up Connie, Franz and Hannah with ease. Just as quickly, he left, and the trio complained loudly as they set back towards the hill.

"That was easy," they mumbled.

Levi tutted and waved something in their face. "He cut shapes into the leaves with his nails and left them in the clearing. Stupid brats got distracted and pranced around in plain sight."

Hange took the leaf and examined it. A rough star cutout was carved into the middle of it, and when they looked back at the clearing, there were similar leaves of hearts and diamonds laying on the ground.

"That's overkill. I'm sure he's proud of himself for getting a couple of little kids like that." It was only a game of It, for crying out loud, and he was a grown man!

"Yeah. But we're still here, so he's chosen not to use the compass."

"Oh. I wonder why?"

But Levi had already slipped out of the bush and sprinted off.

Hange decided it was time to desert the bush as well. Once they were far away from the clearing, they took a moment to collect their thoughts.

If Brother wasn't using the compass but using dirty tactics nonetheless, then he was taking this game seriously and relying on mind games and strategy. He shouldn't know a thing about them planning to disable the trackers, but must be preparing in the event that they did. It was a very Erwin way of thinking, they noted, and screwed their lips together in distaste. They wouldn't get the practice with outrunning the compass that they wanted, yet it was still an opportunity. It would be tough, but they might as well see what the younger children were capable of, as well as themself.

They crept around on their own for a bit, and observed that Brother Reiner didn't look at the compass once on his mission to capture everyone. He did, however, utilise the speed, stamina and brute strength that only an adult of his size could possess to his full advantage, barrelling through hollowed logs the children hid in and catching up to their fastest runners with ease. Hange witnessed Nanaba, Gelgar and Furlan all get caught within seconds of Brother spotting them (though admittedly, Furlan didn't even attempt to run once he knew he'd been spotted).

They wondered if any of the older children beside themself remained.

Their thinking time was cut short when Brother Reiner began sprinting towards them from their side. Hange turned a sharp corner and came face to face with Marco and Armin, the latter of which waved and called an enthusiastic, "Hange!"

If Hange didn't pick them up and drag them along with them, they'd both be caught instantly. Their decision was made subconsciously.

Running with them in their arms, however, appeared to be a little more difficult - Marco weighed significantly more than Armin, and they found themself leering to one side as they pelted through the trees.

They didn't mind the difficulty, as it was a necessary experiment. Both of the boys they'd run into happened to be two of the slowest, so they needed to know whether it was possible for the strongest and eldest children to escape whilst carrying them. Honestly, it was surprising that the two four-year-olds had even lasted this long. Though they were both fairly smart, so Hange imagined they'd survived by deliberately keeping away from the others to avoid Brother's attention.

It became quickly apparent, however, that they didn't stand a chance at outrunning Brother Reiner. He was simply too fast: his legs were twice as long as their own, and he seemed pretty familiar with navigating the forest's environment.

They took cover in a rocky area populated with trees and bushes that disguised their hiding spot, and, after making sure the boys' mouths were covered with their hands, tried to silence their gasping own breaths. Their glasses had steamed up from the exertion, so they couldn't even see if Brother was in the area.

They didn't wait long before finding out.

"Running with two children in your arms is quite ambitious," he taunted. "You're strong, but you're surely tired out by now."

Hange didn't respond. It was silent, save for Brother's footfalls circling the area. They sounded louder as the seconds stretched by.

"Worth a shot. It's admirable to try to help out others at your own expense. But if it doesn't work, you don't get a second chance. I know where you are now."

There won't be a next time. You need to be able to do it right the first time, Levi's words from the other day rang clear in their mind.

Shut up, they told the conjured voice telepathically.

"Come out, won't you?" His voice was really close now. Hange closed their eyes. "I won't eat you. Not yet, anyway."

They couldn't help the horrified gasp that came out of them then, and their eyes snapped back open. Unlike Papa, who subtly hinted towards the truth, that had been an upfront and direct reference to the titans. Brother had even suggested that he was one of them, which was confusing and horrifying to them in multiple ways.

Hange suddenly felt far too out of their depth, unused to the mannerisms of this man that wasn't Papa, that didn't pretend he'd always harboured unconditional love for them. Maybe they should have read more fiction while they had the chance. Then they'd know about how normal adults - or even a different kind of abnormal adult - thought and acted.

"If you saw what happened the other day," Brother Reiner continued, "I'm on your side, okay?"

Hange's glasses cleared up in time for them to be startled at Brother's head looming upside down as he leaned over the back of the rock they were huddled behind. Marco and Armin let go of their mouths and shrieked with laughter, completely oblivious to the one-sided conversation.

They had been tagged.

When Hange made it back to the hill, they were disappointed to find almost everyone else already waiting there. What wasn't surprising was that Erwin and Levi were still yet to be caught, though it didn't fill them with much hope concerning the situation at hand.

It was worrying that they only made it ten minutes. This was the sort of foe they'd be up against during the escape, made even easier without the use of the compass, and yet they'd been caught so quickly and easily, just because they weren't willing to leave Armin and Marco behind and use them as a distraction to save their own skin. As much as they wanted to remain optimistic, the exercise had demonstrated clearly to them that it would be extremely difficult to carry out an escape with everyone getting out of the orphanage alive.

However, their spirits were lifted slightly when, over ten minutes later, both Erwin and Levi emerged from the forest without the smoke signal, a glowering Brother Reiner following them. Erwin walked with his usual good posture, and Levi waved his pocket watch halfheartedly in acknowledgement, but Hange knew both of them were smug at surviving the time.

All the other children in the orphanage cheered for their success; Hange the loudest of all. It felt really good to know that, even if they had been personally defeated this time, they had two brothers they could rely on to conquer the task at hand.

If they all worked together, with their combined skills and strategies, they could probably overcome anything as a unit. And if they could do that, there was a fighting chance that the same could apply to the rest of their siblings, right?

9th November, 10:10

"I think we should move onto team formations now," Hange said as the three of them hung up the washing the following morning.

"I agree," Erwin said. "Do you have something specific in mind?"

"In Brother Reiner's game, the younger ones all split up into their own little groups, even though we taught them in two large groups. If it comes naturally to them, we should work with it and form smaller teams that have a mix of kids who are both physically and mentally able. Having diverse groups will better ensure they can look after each other during the escape in case we can't guide them all at once."

"Who do you plan on leading the teams?" Levi asked. "Because I'm not playing today."

Hange sighed.

"Don't look at me like that. Papa's gonna catch on if he doesn't see me sitting back at the tree like usual any time soon."

"It's fine. We need more than just the three of us for this anyway. If Erwin stays seeker - and I think that would be best - then me, Moblit and Miche can split anyone who wants to play today into three this time. We can divide into four tomorrow if you're able to join."

Levi shrugged in response.

"In that case, I have a couple dozen potential running formations you should memorise," Erwin told them.

"Now?" Hange asked.

"Is that a problem?"

"No," they scoffed. "How would I be able to get perfect scores if I couldn't remember some running patterns?" They hesitated for a moment. "Maybe a few hours isn't enough time for Moblit and Miche to process it, but I think we need to tell them after free time. Especially if they're going to help with the kids' training."

"They'd be able to do so without learning the truth. It's a game, after all, and everyone wants to get better at It. They'd take it seriously enough."

"Why can't we tell them?" They asked, growing increasingly frustrated. "Everyone needs to know if they're gonna run away, and it'll look weird if we keep running off without them all the time. The sooner they know, the more help we can have, and the faster we can progress with preparing the escape. I don't understand why you're so against this."

Erwin stayed quiet for a moment. "I think we should exercise caution for the time being."

"Why?" They huffed.

"We've seen a few of the things Papa has done in an attempt to throw us off the idea of escaping over these last few days," he said carefully. "He's blindsided us several times, and they've all been overt displays of control over our situation. He's chosen to give us information that shows us how severely we're at a disadvantage."

"Okay," they said slowly.

"Imagine how much he hasn't told us. Or, better yet, the things that are going on behind our backs that we can't even see, and won't be able to simply because he won't show us that. There could be things going on at this orphanage that we still don't know about."

"Get to the point," Levi muttered, to Hange's relief.

"We initially assumed Brother Reiner was brought in to spy on us, but I'm not sure that's the case anymore. Though he seems interested in the eldest children, he might have only explicitly interacted with us yesterday for the purpose of gathering information, and I'm not sure he got it."

"He mentioned the titans when he caught me," Hange remembered.

"What?" Levi stilled.

"Well, not directly. But I was with Marco and Armin, and he asked if I saw what happened at the gate, and said that he wouldn't eat me yet," they recounted. "And then he caught us."

"That's insane."

"Reckless, to let the other children hear such a thing," Erwin agreed. "Thank you, Hange. I think that solidifies my theory that he didn't participate to gather information for Papa. That's far too on the nose. I think he has his own motivations for finding out who the ones that know the truth are."

"What would that even be?" Levi asked.

"He said he was on our side, too," Hange added.

"Likely story. Any other obviously important information?"

"I just remembered it!" They sputtered in defence. "I didn't really think about exactly what he meant, just that it was crazy he even said it out loud!"

"Anyways," Erwin continued, "Brother Reiner's focus has mostly been on looking after the youngest whilst Papa's been away doing something else, which I'm also curious about, but that's not my point."

"Any chance you could tell us your point before I'm shipped off?" Levi muttered dryly, and Hange whacked him on the shoulder.

"Having a spy is a perfect idea for gathering information about our plan. But Brother Reiner isn't a spy, and Papa hasn't been listening in on our conversations either. We've been caref-"

"Wait!" Hange burst out. "What if there's listening mechanisms? If they have trackers on us, surely they'd have other technology to spy on us." They were suddenly very, very terrified.

"There aren't," Erwin assured them. "I checked the first morning after Eren left."

"Oh, good. Good. Thanks," they breathed a sigh of relief.

They couldn't believe they hadn't thought about it to begin with, or even when they became aware of the tracking devices. Everything would have been ruined if that were the case. They'd probably all be dead.

"Neither Brother Reiner nor Papa are directly spying on us," he continued, "and they aren't using any equipment to watch or listen in on us either. Yet everything Papa's done seems to have been a direct countermeasure to what we were planning or discussing. Why do you think that is?" Erwin stopped talking, and Hange realised he was waiting for an answer.

"I don't know," they said. They could probably work it out if they thought about it, but Erwin was really dragging this along, and he clearly already knew, so they'd rather he'd just said it already.

"What do you think, Levi?"

Levi and Erwin exchanged a look that went on long enough that Hange started to feel uncomfortable. Worried that Levi was about to snap at Erwin for taking so long, they opened their mouth to break the silence. Before they could say anything, however, Levi glanced away and sighed.

"There's still a spy. If it's not Brother or Papa, then it has to be one of the kids."

"What? Who?" Hange asked.

It got quiet again. They started to feel a bit sick.

"I don't know," Erwin said.

"You don't know?"

"It makes sense for Papa to have his own personal method of watching us, and this would be far more discrete," Levi said. "That's how he likes to do things. Whatever his plans for preventing our escape are, he seems extremely confident, even if he hasn't appeared to do anything drastic yet. If he's getting information from someone else at the orphanage, that makes it a breeze for him to plan a counterattack when the day comes."

"It's just a theory, really," Erwin added. "I didn't think about it until Brother Reiner turned up. If he was brought in to watch all of the children, and one of them is the spy, they could easily be telling him information instead of Papa, so we wouldn't be suspicious of them."

"That can't be true," Hange said faintly.

"Also, given Brother's watching all the children, if we told any of them the secret, he'd be able to tell by watching their behaviour. Even if we told anyone before he turned up, I'm sure he's read our personal files. The ones that are supposedly given to potential adoptive families."

"And if we happen to tell the spy, they'd have even more information, and Papa could crack down on us quicker," Levi added.

"That too."

"Moblit and Miche aren't spies," Hange argued. "They can't be."

"They could be," Levi said.

"Don't be ridiculous. We've grown up with them. They're only a year under us."

"Doesn't matter. It could be anyone, Hange."

"It's no-"

"It doesn't matter," Erwin said loudly, "because if they aren't and we tell them, Brother would still be able to tell, and they'll be targeted for information. Then we might have multiple spies on our hands. So, just for now, I don't think we should tell anyone else. I agree with you, Hange, that they will need to know eventually. If they aren't spies."

"They're not."

"Well, someone is," Levi said nonchalantly.

"Shut up, Levi," they hissed.

"You're going to get nowhere just blindly believing in people."

"I don't care. I'm not gonna go around accusing one of our siblings of being a traitor. There's no way there's a kid here that knows what's happening and is happy to stop us from preventing our own deaths!"

"Oi, keep your voice down."

"They might not necessarily have to know that," Erwin reasoned. "They might just have been asked to spy without knowing the reason why we'd want to leave. But finding out the source will be easy enough. We can just feed them false information. If one of them takes the bait and Papa acts upon the information we've given them, we'll have our answer."

"And if it's neither of them?" Hange asked.

"Then we can have full confidence in them joining us, provided they can keep up pretences. Either way, I plan on convincing the traitor to join our side instead of working against us. Perhaps feed false information to Papa, if they agree."

"Yeah. Taking Papa's pawn out of his control wouldn't be impossible," Levi mused.

Hange nodded vigorously. They still hated the idea that a spy amongst the kids could even exist, but if they were discovered early and defected to their side, it wouldn't be an issue, and they wouldn't need to leave them behind, either.

"How's the research going?" Erwin asked Hange.

They sighed. "Not much better than the night before. I'm starting to regain a basic understanding of all of that stuff, but finding any mechanisms close to what makes up the trackers is gonna be a bust. There's even pages ripped out of some of them."

"Really? That's interesting."

"Yeah. Of course, some of the kids' books are worn and a few are missing pages, but they're replaced pretty often, and this is the sort of stuff toddlers wouldn't be able to access, since it's on the attic level. It seems intentional."

"If that's true, then you won't be getting anything out of the library," Levi told them. "No point wasting your time there when they've removed all the stuff you need."

"I still can't give up, though. We can't leave without getting rid of the trackers."

"Perhaps it would be worth looking into cutting them out after all, then," Erwin said. "We can search the infirmary one day for medical supplies, too."

"Yeah. We all know basic first aid anyway, but I can look further into the medical books so we can be efficient about it," they responded.

"Let us do it tomorrow," he decided. "Tonight we'll tell Miche and Moblit about the escape. I'll set up the bait information before bed, and we'll have our answer by tomorrow afternoon. Then we can spend our free time in the library and get through those books in a single night, and plan the bulk of the escape in the next few days. It would benefit us to leave as soon as next week, if possible."

"Huh?"

"Why rush?" Levi asked. "We have over a month before another person is shipped." You, Hange thought, not just another person.

"Papa will be thinking the same. Quite honestly, I think he already knows the three of us are involved. The moment Levi joined us at the wall the day we told him, Papa would have noticed he wasn't sitting by the tree, and he would have checked the compass."

"That's not for certain," Levi said, though rather uncertainly.

Hange didn't want to believe it either, but they knew the chances of them still being under the radar were slim now. Especially if there was a spy. Which there wasn't. They didn't want to believe that part. At least, not consciously.

"Why hasn't he done anything then?" They wondered.

"He doesn't need to," Erwin replied. "The logical thing for us to think is that we have until Levi is shipped, and that we're going to spend the next six weeks planning as thoroughly as possible. He's letting us think that, too, by not pressuring us too much. If we're going to win, we can't let him control the timeline. We need to be completely unpredictable, and this is a good way to do that. And it benefits us to leave before winter sets in."

"And if rushing it causes us to fail?" Levi asked.

"We won't rush," Erwin said firmly. "I'll have plenty of time to plan, and when more people are in on the escape plan, the quicker preparations will move along. I can make sure I have a plan for a winter setting too, but it might not be as efficient."

The shorter boy tutted. "Fine."

9th November, 13:49

By free time, Hange was already sick of trying to figure out who the traitor was. They'd been telling themself that one of the younger kids must have been doing it accidentally, but it wasn't helping their guilt. They hated distrusting people. It was too far out of their comfort zone.

All of their siblings were so sweet. Yet there was no denying that many of them were also very smart. Smart enough for something like this.

"What's Armin's average at?" Levi asked as they kicked a football between them.

Hange despised that they'd worked it out already, even though Armin didn't even have an official weekly average yet. "203."

"That's ridiculously high for a four-year-old. Better than me at that age. Erwin, too."

Previously, Hange had prided themself on being the only child to ever score over 200 on their first test at the orphanage. It wasn't shocking that Armin had managed to do the same. He'd been trying to study since the age of three, when, at the same time, his siblings of a similar age were still getting the hang of walking steadily and speaking comprehensible sentences.

They considered it remarkable. And suspicious.

"He can barely run a few metres without keeling over, but he was still one of the last five remaining in the It game against Brother Reiner," Levi continued. "Also, he and Marco are always trailing after you and Erwin."

"Shut up!" They snapped at him. "Keep your horrible thoughts to yourself."

"Even if you don't like it, you have to think about it," he scowled. "We're not doing this for fun."

Hange ignored him and walked off towards Erwin. They waved him down, and he broke away from a conversation with Moblit, Nanaba and Miche to join them.

"About telling Moblit and Miche..."

"Have you changed your mind?" Erwin asked. "I don't mind delaying it another day. We can start with the library tonight instead."

"No, it's fine."

"Okay. If you want, we could test them before telli-"

"Enough about the spy," they said exasperatedly. "I just wondered if... maybe we didn't tell them the exact truth. Just for now. I know Moblit would get pretty stressed about it, and I thought about what you said with the others showing their emotions on their faces."

"Right. Miche would be scared too," he acknowledged. "He'll be mad later if we tell them the full truth eventually, but that doesn't matter until later. We'll deal with that when the time comes. We can tell them an abridged version for now so that they understand we still need to leave, regardless of the reasoning."

"Yeah. I just wanna ease them into it. It was a lot to just... to know everything at once." They shook themself off and straightened up. "Now that's out of the way, how about a game of It?"

Following their earlier conversation, Levi had apparently decided there was no point in sitting by the tree in the pretence that everything was normal, and so they decided to switch up their previous plans. This time, Levi was It and took a small group of children with him, aiming to teach them how to overcome some of the tricks they'd learned to pull against the seeker last time. Hange, Erwin, Moblit and Miche all took their own groups of runners, and they each practised a few formations of splitting their groups until each child was left on their own to survive the last ten minutes of the game.

Once more, Armin had been one of the last remaining, and was seemingly only caught because Mikasa managed to guess where he'd been hiding and caught up to him when he made a run for it. But Hange didn't want to suspect him, nor anyone else, for that matter. They resolved to firmly ignore any thoughts regarding the escape until the evening, when it came time to inform Moblit and Miche.

The three eldest children entered the library as a trio after dinner. The younger two boys were already waiting at one of the corner tables in the attic.

"What's this about?" Moblit asked as Levi climbed up the gaps of a bookcase and perched precariously on top of it so he could overlook the balcony and the front door. "You shouldn't be up there."

"That'll be the least of your worries soon enough," Levi muttered, and Moblit went quiet.

Erwin sighed and sat across from them; Hange followed suit.

"We have something important to tell you," Erwin started. "Recently we discovered that our siblings aren't all being fostered or adopted by loving homes. Instead, they've been sent off to bad people."

"What do you mean bad people?" Miche asked when Erwin paused.

"People that... aren't going to treat them nicely. Abuse them, in a way." Hange felt sick hearing him say it.

"That's not funny, Erwin."

"It's not a joke," they butted in.

Miche stared impassively at them before looking back at Erwin. "Please don't tell me you've made up another one of these conspiracies based on nothing. We're too old for this."

"None of our siblings have contacted us," Erwin continued. "They haven't been able to. There's a large gate in front of the orphanage that we're not allowed near, as well as the area beyond the fence. It's because we'd be able to see where people went if we looked through it. But we've never been given a clear reason why."

"Safety is a clear reason." Miche raked a hand through his hair. "Maybe they don't know who to send the letters to."

"They could ask their new parents. But they can't. They didn't go to nice families that let them live happily."

"Erwin."

Erwin didn't respond.

Miche turned sharply towards Hange. "Please don't tell me you believe this too."

Hange couldn't speak, and stared down at the table.

"They never went to real families," Levi spoke up from the bookcase. "That's not a lie."

Miche stared at the eldest boy with wide eyes and his mouth agape. Levi had never joined in on instigating a lie or pretended to go along with a story before, ever the party pooper, claiming stringing along Miche wasn't fun when it was so easy. Hange imagined Miche wouldn't believe that he'd changed his mind now.

Miche stood to his full height, towering over the rest of those at the table. "Papa wouldn't allow it. He looks after us. He spends all his time doing that."

"He sells us," Erwin corrected.

"Take that back!" His nostrils flared. "You better admit that's a lie. That's a disgusting thing to say."

"This is why you've been so distant lately, isn't it, Hange?" Moblit asked quietly.

They realised two things simultaneously; that he'd been silent up until that point, and that they'd specifically avoided looking at him the entire time.

"Moblit," Miche said through gritted teeth.

"I believe them. This is too much for a joke. Hange wouldn't agree to do this. None of them would. You know that," he exhaled shakily.

"Sit down, Miche," Erwin requested.

Miche did so without another word, stiff as a board.

"The night you went to give Eren his necklace," Moblit continued. "When you broke the rules and went to the gate. You didn't say a thing to anyone about it afterwards. You usually wouldn't care about getting caught breaking the rules like that, but Erwin asked us not to mention that you two had even gone there in the first place."

Miche's eyes went wide. Hange glanced at Erwin, but he didn't indicate otherwise.

"All three of you have been disappearing on the rest of us, and you hardly smile anymore when you're not talking to the youngest kids. It's been difficult to even-" Moblit took another breath, his eyes welling up, "to even ask what's been bothering you. A-and this entire time, it's been this horrible thing, ha-hasn't it?"

"Oh, Moblit," Hange whispered, and rushed to his side before the first sob had even left his mouth.

They felt awful. Moblit had been hovering around them the whole time, concerned out of his mind for them, but instead of sharing everything with him like they always did, they'd kept him out of it. Hell, they'd even had the nerve to suspect he was capable of betraying them.

They hadn't noticed how he'd felt at all, and it was honestly poor behaviour, even from them. They knew better. Moblit wasn't capable of fake tears. He always hated whenever one of the other kids called him a crybaby. Hange understood him better than most others at the orphanage did, and knew full well that he was smart enough to be helping with some of the stuff they'd been mulling over too. It was counterproductive to have kept him in the dark for this long.

"I'm so sorry," they murmured into the younger boy's forehead, surprised to hear the hoarseness in their voice. "So sorry, Moblit."

"Hange," he whispered. "Did you see when Eren got taken away by the bad people?"

Hange closed their eyes and stayed quiet. They couldn't lie to him, not now.

"Yes," Erwin did it for them.

Miche stood upright again to speak. "You watched him go? Is he okay?"

"We didn't make it in time. Hardly saw him getting taken away."

"We need to get out of here," Hange managed to add. "To save him, and to stop anyone else from getting taken."

"If you need further convincing, here's a chart of all our test scores, and the order in which our siblings were sent out," Erwin slid the open notepad across the table for Moblit and Miche to look at. "From the age of five, the child with the lowest score is sent out. By twelve, we're shipped off regardless."

"Eren, Tomas, Nac..." Moblit wiped the tears from his eyes. "Yeah, there's a pattern. Why, though?"

"They don't want children that are smart enough to be able to escape," Erwin fibbed smoothly. "I'm not sure what happened to Keith or the other twelve-year-olds. They might have been sent elsewhere."

"Please help us," Hange pleaded. "We'll all escape together, and save everyone else."

It rolled off their tongue so easily after Erwin had set up the scene. They hated themself for it, that they were still lying even after a week of obscuring the truth hadn't done anyone any favours. It would only get worse, too. They'd have to explain a plan of action for finding the other children, and that would waste precious time they needed to spend on the escape itself.

"Of course!" Moblit answered.

Miche sniffed loudly and hummed in agreement, rocking lightly on the balls of his feet. "You know where they are?"

"We might have an idea," Erwin said. "We'll leave it for tomorrow, though. Thanks for joining us. I'll catch up with both of you in a bit. Separately, though. We don't want Papa suspecting anything."

Hange watched both of them walk out. Moblit was a little calmer now, but Miche was more wound up than he'd been when he initially walked in. He was scared for his siblings - the ones that were already gone. They felt sick.

"What the hell is wrong with you two?" Levi leapt down from the bookcase, and Hange startled. They'd somehow forgotten he was there. "We don't know if they're okay, we'll go save them. Pushovers. What's lying gonna do?"

Hange agreed, having changed their mind the second false promises had left their mouth. It was a bad idea in the first place, but they really didn't want to be the one to break the real truth to Moblit and Miche just after lying to their faces.

"They might have disagreed if we asked them to venture into a world where they might need to fight for their lives every day," Erwin answered him with his usual disposition. "We're against people who want us dead, along with any of those unthinking titans that might potentially be around. That went about as smoothly as it could have."

"Keep telling yourself that, eyebrows. If they aren't traitors, excessive lying is just cruel. Especially if they find out by accident later and aren't prepared to run or fight."

"They aren't traitors," Hange declared.

"And how would you know, four-eyes?"

"Moblit is my sibling. He wouldn't do that. I'm sure Erwin feels the same about Miche. Moblit isn't the sort to pretend everything's okay here and let us all get eaten in the end."

"You could say that about anyone. Someone's the traitor."

"He is my little brother," Hange spat, and that was the end of that. "What if I started accusing Furlan or Isabel?"

"It could be. I'm watching them all." It was quite possibly the least convincing lie they'd ever heard come out of Levi's mouth.

"Listen," Erwin interrupted with furrowed eyebrows. "I will tell them individually of the plan we have tonight. There's no need for this. We'll know by tomorrow."

"What's the plan, then?" Levi asked. "You haven't even said what you're gonna do yet." Hange stood up and paced the attic, furious that they were still bothering with this stupid test of loyalty.

"I'll tell each of them that a rope has been hidden either in the bathroom ceiling or under the floorboards of my bed. I'll put some in both places, of course, but if it goes missing from one location or the other, we'll know who our spy is. Is that all right with you?"

"Fine."

"Hange?"

"Do what you want," they muttered. "When I'm proven right, I'll rub it in both your faces."

With that, they turned on their heel and left to prepare for bed.

They spent their shower attempting to wash away the guilt of knowing Erwin was about to lie to Moblit and Miche yet again. Even though the fake rope was less significant than the falsehood of their earlier discussion, it was continuing to mistrust them despite bringing them to their side that they hated.

By bedtime, they had managed to let it go, and spent the first night in a while talking to Moblit in their dormitory almost as carefree as they used to. As they rambled about brain development, memory capacity in children, muscle strength, endurance, dozens of tag formations and how they could be effective for both physical and mental strategies, Moblit spurred them on with his input on how the forest's environment impacted their games.

He also shared some of his own memories and experiences of the house, which Hange found just as fascinating - having spent every day growing up together, they'd never really thought to ask him about things that had happened to him, assuming they both experienced everything the same. He seemed to be at the development stage where some memories had just started to fragment, but not all. From their observations, they could sense a pattern in what types of memories from what ages were being compartmentalised first. They'd certainly be using Miche as another test subject later to see if his brain was any similar.

It should have been a nice end to the night, compared to the past few days. However, an hour after the dormitory had settled down to sleep, Hange heard someone get out of bed and cross by their own. They opened their eyes, facing into the dormitory. Light poured into the room briefly before the door clicked shut, but they had good enough hearing and instinct to know whose bed was unoccupied. Nausea settled in their stomach, and their limbs were heavy as they put on their glasses and slippers.

They followed the figure all the way to Brother Reiner's door.

"Ah, there you are, Moblit. I was waiting up for you," Brother said when he opened the door, and Moblit slipped in as it swung shut behind him.

Hange wanted to scream. This wasn't happening. They were dreaming. The Moblit they knew couldn't possibly be Papa's source. He was too old to be ignorant of what he was doing, which was their current theory for the motivations of the spy. Unless... Unless he hadn't known of the consequences. If he was as worried about them as he'd said, he could have been reporting their strange behaviour to Papa or Brother, thinking there was something wrong with them and they needed help. No, no, no, no.

"Now, then, go ahead and tell me wha-" Brother Reiner's voice became more muffled as he moved away from the locked door. The keyhole was blocked, so Hange had no chance of seeing in either.

"About that," Moblit's voice was clearer and closer to the door. "It's... There's nothing to worry about anymore, actually. Thanks for looking out for me, though."

"Of course. It's important to talk your worries out, both so that the weight is lifted off your shoulders and others can aid you in finding a solution. I can see you've been down, and I hear you aren't usually so withdrawn."

"Yeah, but I'm okay now!"

Hange cupped their mouth to hold in their relief. Of course he wouldn't. He would never, could never.

"Thanks again."

Their joy was short-lived.

"If you're okay now, that means something happened, right?"

Silence.

"Hange told you everything? That's a shame. It might skew your perception of things."

Hange listened to Brother Reiner's heavy footsteps moving closer towards them - and Moblit.

"Who else knows? Erwin, Levi, and...? If you talk to me, I'll let you go, no problem."

They were suddenly paralysed with the fear that Brother would give too much information to Moblit, and mention the titans, or that their siblings had been killed. They couldn't deal with this right now.

It sickened them that Brother's voice still sounded so protective and comforting, like he genuinely cared about helping Moblit. They didn't know how the adults did it, when it took Hange so much work to keep a straight face and lie for a cause more important than anything. These adults - no, these devils - working with titans did it with such ease, and no remorse for the children they were killing in their conflict. They couldn't understand the cruelty of it all, no matter how hard they tried.

"Please stop!" They heard Moblit cry out, and he took a step closer towards the door. While Hange had been thinking, he hadn't spoken a word, and it had been still behind the door for a length of time that stretched well beyond natural. "I don't know what you're talking about. Hange and I had - we had an argument, but we made up today, so everything's alright now. That's all."

Hange felt a surge of pride within their chest. Never had they heard Moblit be so assertive whilst defending himself. He was the type to steer clear of antagonising people and back down from conflicts, even if it meant he got pushed about by Gelgar, Levi or anyone else that liked to get on people's nerves every so often. But finally, he'd fought back for once, managing to save face both by lying and maintaining supposed innocence.

"Ah," Brother Reiner spoke quietly. They couldn't hear him properly again. "My... standing. I... ise. "I di... et in your face and sp..."

And then Hange heard footsteps and rushed as soundlessly as they could around the corner of the hallway and back into their dormitory. They heard a faint goodbye as they went to sit down on their bed, and within half a minute, Moblit was opening and closing their door with practised silence. He jumped when he saw them waiting for him, and they smiled.

"Hange," he whispered hoarsely. Even in the minimal light, they could see how badly he was shaking and the way his eyes swam.

"Thank you, Moblit," they murmured into his ear, and embraced him. He buried his head into their shoulder to muffle his cries as he wept. "I'm sorry you had to do that. I'm so proud of you. It sounded really tough."

They stood there long enough for Moblit to calm down, waiting until he stopped making any sound. No more words were spoken between them as Hange led the younger boy to bed, the only noise being a small exhale from Moblit's nose as they tucked him in. Once they were sure he was asleep, they walked a lap around each of the beds and checked upon all the children. All safe and sleeping soundly.

They had to protect them. They had to get them all out.

10th November, 10:24

"Did you see what Brother Reiner was doing this morning?" Levi asked Erwin as the two of them folded the laundry. "Trying to identify footprints in the storage room with all the brats running around to see him. What a creep."

Erwin hummed, and tried to recall how often he'd heard Levi express distaste over Brother's movements. "Hange mentioned it too. We already knew, but it's further evidence that he's conducting his own investigation and keeping it from Papa."

Levi still looked concerned.

"I wouldn't worry about it. Five of the seven oldest of us wear the same-sized slippers, so he won't get much out of trying to identify an individual. Besides, I walked around in there enough that he won't be able to figure out what I'm doing just from my steps."

"Not unless he finds the rope missing. What does he want, if he's not working with Papa?"

"We'll work it out soon." Erwin caught sight of Hange and Moblit pottering around by the wash basins. "Hange also said Moblit's clean. With evidence, this time."

"Fair enough," Levi shrugged.

Erwin thought to himself for a moment. "I have my own opinions about this, but why do you think a traitor exists? Why would someone betray their siblings?"

"There's probably a reward for it. Whether they've been told they won't be made to leave, or get eaten, or something along those lines." The older boy answered as quickly and nonchalantly as usual. Erwin had no doubts he'd already thought about such a thing.

"A guarantee to live. That makes sense."

And it did, very much so. The issue, though, was that Levi's answer hadn't really helped Erwin decide what to do.

In their conversations surrounding the escape without Hange present, they had discussed leaving the other children behind, or even killing Papa and Brother Reiner in order to reduce their adversaries and make the risk of taking others along more viable. The traitor was another such obstacle, despite being a dear sibling of his. He wished he was capable of granting them the same fate as Papa and Brother, but he couldn't lie that well to himself. Leaving them alive and able, though, would either mean abandoning them at the orphanage or forcing them to escape with the rest of them.

"Hange." Erwin found them in the hallway, a broom in their hands as they counted their steps under their breath. He feared they and Levi had rubbed off too much on one another if they were resorting to such behaviour.

"Yeah?" They muttered distantly.

"If the traitor was betraying us because it meant they'd be allowed to live, what would you do with them?"

"What would I do with them?" They repeated, and stood still to think on it. "Well, you mentioned having them defect and join our side, so that would be one thing, after we confront them. And then... well, then they're one of us. We all escape like we planned to."

"And what if they don't agree to join us, and they don't want to come?" He asked tentatively.

"Doesn't matter. They're coming with us. You know I don't believe someone is doing this maliciously, Erwin. I'm not arguing about this again."

"I understand. Just... what if they really were betraying us? Would you still try and take them with us?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah?"

"Betrayal's a horrible word," Hange scrunched their nose. "They're doing it because they want to live, and they think that's their only option to save themselves. But we can present them a different option for survival. Besides, if we escape and leave them behind, they haven't done their job right, and they might not have that guarantee to live anymore. Escaping with all our siblings means escaping with all of them."

Erwin understood now. Embarrassingly, he had been distracted by his thoughts regarding his top suspect for the traitor. It was unnatural for him to let his emotions lead him astray from the facts of the matter. Hange's insight was extremely valuable. The traitor was simply looking to survive, just like the rest of them were.

"Besides," they continued. "I thought you said you would convince them to come over to our side. Did someone check your ego, Mr. I've-never-lost-anything?"

"Not yet," Erwin smiled lightly. "I'll stick to my word."

He had to. Thanks to Hange, he could focus now. It didn't matter what his personal feelings were on the matter. It didn't affect what the outcome needed to be.

During lunch, he went with Levi to check the places they had discussed the ropes would be hidden the previous night. Erwin was pretty certain of the outcome, but it was necessary to go through the motions for Levi's sake. That, and a small part of Erwin was hoping he'd be wrong, for once.

Though Hange's report proved Moblit's innocence well enough, they still checked the bathroom ceiling, where Erwin had told the boy the rope would be stashed. It was, of course, still there. Under Erwin's bed, which was the location he'd entrusted to Miche, he lifted the floorboards to find nothing there at all. Taking a slow breath, he put the boards and bed back into place and shook his head at Levi.

"So Miche's the traitor, then," the shorter boy murmured, eyes fixed to the floor.

Erwin let the silence sit for a moment, making sure there was nobody lurking outside in the hallway before closing the door of the dormitory.

"No. It's you."

"Huh?" Levi's eyes widened before his expression slipped back into one of boredom.

Erwin said nothing.

Unusually, Levi didn't break eye contact, searching for Erwin's thoughts in his pupils, but Erwin was certain he'd mastered the art of giving away nothing there. That was the difference between his and Levi's stone masks: Levi's emotions bled through his eyes; Erwin's could remain impenetrable if he focused enough. The silence in the room was disrupted only by the ticking of the grandfather clock on the other side of the room.

Then the corner of Levi's mouth twitched minutely: a smirk.

"And how have you come to this conclusion, eyebrows?" He asked, voice dripping with sarcasm - no, venom.

"The purpose of this wasn't just to test Moblit and Miche. I said to you and Hange that I'd tell Miche about the rope under my bed, and Moblit about the rope in the ceiling of the second-floor bathroom. But I told Miche that the rope was in the dining hall, and Moblit that it was in the library. I checked those locations this morning, and they're still there, in case you were wondering. The only one missing is from a location I told you it would be located at. That's how I know you framed Miche, and that you're Papa's source of information."

Levi's smirk had disappeared. He looked at Erwin a while longer before sighing and flopping his back onto Erwin's bed, covering his face with one arm. And then he let out a vocal huff, a shorter one, and bared his teeth. It sounded a bit strangled coming from his throat. When he removed his arm and met Erwin's eyes, his own grey irises glittered, and the blonde realised that Levi was laughing.

"Damn. I thought I was doing alright." He sat upright so suddenly that Erwin almost leaned backwards before he remembered what he was supposed to be doing. "Fair play. I'm Papa's spy. What gave it away?"

Although his behaviour up until now had been enough evidence, the blatant admission dashed any hopes Erwin had that he might have been mistaken. He sat beside Levi, and steeled himself a final time.

"I've been thinking about it since Brother Reiner arrived at the house," he answered, crossing his arms. "That was when I initially considered that Papa could be collaborating with someone to get intel on us. You were the first person I suspected."

The ghost of a smile tainted Levi's lips. It was unsettling, and Erwin couldn't figure out why.

"It's not something I wanted to believe. You're my brother and a dear friend of mine. But Papa's moves so far have resulted in the worst-case scenario for us, and it would have been in his best interests that the person feeding him information was you. You were the first person we'd introduce into our plans, and you'd be able to influence what we did and control the situation for him. There's no one better suited to the job than you."

"I see," was Levi's only input.

"As I thought, the worst possible option was the truth."

Erwin's understanding of the opponent he was up against in this chess game was fully solidified at this point. Papa was the sort who pulled the most aggressive of moves in the subtlest of ways. He had to be on high guard at all times, assume everything and everyone could kill his piece with each move. And, because of that...

"This isn't the first time he's asked you to do this either." Erwin felt no satisfaction as Levi's face settled back into its typical frown. "You're closest to Hange out of everyone here, so it's unlikely Papa would trust you to turn your back on them and play for his side. You must have been his puppet for a while before this." Erwin hesitated, but he knew what he needed to ask. "How long, Levi?"

The boy's near-smile returned. His range in emotion was giving Erwin whiplash. He was so unused to it from Levi, and it almost felt like he didn't really know him at all, even after spending every day of the past ten years with him.

"Far, far longer than you'd like to know, Erwin."

He felt dread bubbling up in his chest. That meant more than a year, at least. He tried to think back as long as he could remember, piecing memories together to try and form an idea of how long the boy's behaviour had suggested he'd been working with Papa.

Levi had always seemed different from the other children. Of course, each of his siblings were unique, bearing their own personalities and habits. Yet, during the past ten years and around a hundred children that Erwin had lived with, Levi was the only one who appeared dissatisfied with the seemingly perfect life at Shiganshina House.

A younger Erwin had asked Papa why Levi was so sad all the time, likely after an even younger version of him had asked Levi himself, though he didn't remember the latter. Papa had said that was just how he came across, and he felt differently on the inside. Erwin had been satisfied enough with the answer then, but now he wasn't so sure.

The older boy was gruff, glum, and pessimistic about many things. Though he helped his younger siblings out when needed, he never went to the effort of socialising, hiding away in the library to study during free time and sticking himself under the tree that a lot of people had simply accepted was his spot, seldom joining in on their group games. He was blunt to everyone, including Papa, and openly criticised some of his rules. No one else did that. Not even Erwin, and he'd asked many questions in his life.

But Levi had always been like that, as long as Erwin could remember. He couldn't recall a moment when Levi could have become aware of the truth of the orphanage, when a change had occurred. He was sure he would have noticed such a thing.

Why couldn't he remember?

The more Erwin tried to recall, the closer he felt to comprehending a truth he wasn't ready to face. Levi was right. He didn't want to know. The possibility that this entire time, for every day and every conversation for however many years...

"Was everything a lie?" He asked with a small voice. He wasn't supposed to come across like that. He tried again. "How much did you tell Papa? Are you leading us to be sabotaged?"

He got right up in Levi's face, something he knew made him extremely uncomfortable. The shorter boy cringed and leaned back a little, but ultimately stood his ground.

Erwin hated it. There was a thought circling in his head that this wasn't the Levi he thought he knew for ten years, not at all.

"Why bother asking? I could answer you with another lie."

"Because it is very important to me that your priorities align with ours."

"And if it isn't? You gonna kick me to the curb?"

"No," Erwin answered instantly. "You'd need to be involved with us the same level as before either way, as not to raise suspicion. Papa knows you're controlling us, and if he starts to believe otherwise, he might start pulling incredibly dangerous moves we aren't prepared to defend against."

Like sending them out to get eaten immediately.

"You know fully well that I was considering killing whoever the traitor might be," he continued. "So it's disappointing that you went to the trouble of framing poor Miche just to stay hidden. Nobody else knows that yet, of course. Now you have a chance to fix your mistake."

"Don't bother with that manipulating rubbish on me," Levi glowered. "Just tell me what you want, and I'll make whatever decision I feel like making."

"Three things," Erwin held up his fingers to illustrate. "One: stay with us the same as before as not to compromise our immediate safety. Two: disclose everything you know about Papa and the orphanage as well as everything you've told him about our plan. Three: betray him and come to our side."

Levi scoffed. "That's stupid. If all you're gonna do is use me as a spy, you shouldn't have bothered approaching me in the first place. It would've been better to keep the blackmail and bargaining for another time, and then cut me out of it last-minute."

"I thought about it," Erwin decided to say. "But having you do it knowingly saves us time and effort that we don't have to spend on fake strategy meetings. Papa made his game as easy on himself by choosing you to spy on us, so I want to do the same for mine. And.... I would like to think, just as Hange does, that you would put our friendship ahead of your goals as an enemy and switch sides. We're a family. We have been for a decade."

While Erwin and Levi's relationship could be described as complex at best, Erwin knew that Levi at least viewed them as equals, even at the worst of times, despite the fact that the blonde was a year younger than him. Levi and Hange, however, had a twin-like bond, and he simply couldn't see either of them choosing to be on opposite sides to one another, regardless of the situation. That, and there were still other facts at play that made Erwin certain that Levi would be willing to work with them.

"And one other thing." Levi inclined his head to show he was listening. "You dressed Eren the day he left. He never lets anyone else do it. You hid his key necklace, didn't you?"

Somehow, the boy looked even more surly than he did to begin with.

"You intentionally set us up to go to the gate that day and see the truth of this orphanage for ourselves. You kickstarted this whole plan into motion and invited us in, not the other way around. I cannot believe there is any other reason for that."

Levi shrugged, and took long, slow blinks as he and Erwin stared one another down. Still, he did not respond, and so Erwin kept talking.

"We wouldn't have gone if you hadn't said we could get there in time. You came to us when you wanted to start interfering directly, you aided with the team training, and intentionally influenced how fast the plan would be progressing. I imagine that's because by controlling us, you can also control the information you give Papa. Perhaps you were even telling him certain things before directing us to do them. That's why you don't want the escape progressing too fast, either."

Levi huffed with amusement.

"What you haven't told him, though, is about the rope in the tree - the real one - because that's still there. You watched us put it in there the first day you approached us. That's giving us an opportunity to succeed with information that's being obfuscated from Papa. That's not something a true enemy would do. So why did you even agree to be Papa's spy in the first place, Levi? Because I know you don't believe in there being a reward to live at the end of this."

It took a moment for the other boy to answer. "I proposed the idea to him. I decided from the moment I told him I knew the truth that I'd use my position as a tool. Every second of it," Levi raised his voice, and for a moment, Erwin saw the wild look in his eyes, "was in preparation for this damn escape!"

"For this...?"

"Don't you know, Erwin? The most efficient way of gathering information about the enemy is to gain their trust and take it from the inside. It was only natural that I put myself there."

"That's incredibly risky."

"I don't wanna hear nothing about dangerous coming from you, eyebrows," he snarled. Erwin couldn't move a muscle. "It had a decent chance of success. I figured out quick that the shipment order was based on our test results, and I was a high scorer, so Papa wouldn't ship me out if he wanted a kid in the high 250s in the near future. He doesn't care about the rules as much as making himself look good for the people outside. I was willing to cooperate, and I'd do what he wanted. All I asked for in return was not to be eaten early, and to be rewarded whenever I did a good job. It would be much easier for him if I played ball instead of making a ruckus amongst all the other kids. Messes with brain development, you know."

"What rewards?" Erwin asked. He had a lot of questions; apparently, that one was the most pressing to him at that moment.

"It was just junk. Stuff that wasn't in the house that he'd have to outsource to get."

Erwin thought on it, and remembered various unique toys and contraptions he'd seen in Levi's possession over the years, the pocket watch most prominently of all. It had always seemed strange whenever Levi suddenly had new things. The children only got presents on their birthday or Christmas. He'd asked, once, and Papa had explained that because Levi's birthday was on Christmas Day, the other children had felt jealous that he got two toys when they only got one, and so Levi had asked to get his birthday present later in the year. Erwin assumed that, when he lost count of Levi's gifts, it was because the timing of his birthday gift never fell on a consistent date.

It seemed he'd been right after all, and the elder boy had been getting extra things. And they were always much more interesting than what the other children got. They were all asked things that they wanted when the times came around, but maybe Levi's presents being so unique hadn't just been because the rest of them were unimaginative with their requests.

"You were testing the extent of what you could get from the outside world," he guessed.

Levi nodded. "Pretty much everything was fine, as long as it didn't contain anything that could be used as a weapon. Everything was still old as hell, though, to match the books in the library I learned about them from. But sometimes the rewards would take a month or two for Papa to get. When that happened, it probably meant what I asked for isn't in circulation anymore and technology's advanced far enough that what was commonplace thirty years ago is pretty much useless in comparison."

"That's really smart," Erwin breathed. "Did... did you get anything that might help us with the trackers?"

Levi grinned with teeth. "'Course. I've seen the trackers with my own eyes. Took me a few years, but I'm pretty sure I've got an idea of how to mess them up without triggering the alarm signals." Erwin's eyes went wide at the revelation. "No need to waste time at the library. With the theory I know, it won't take long for Hange and I to put it together."

"That..." Erwin couldn't speak. He needed to concentrate all his efforts on not shaking.

"Do you understand? I'm the strongest weapon you could ever wish for," Levi spread his arms wide. "I can backstab Papa. I can tell Hange how to break the trackers. I know enough about the orphanage for you to carry out this escape with minimal issues. I've been preparing for this damn thing ever since I found out the secret. So yeah, I did take Eren's key, and led you two to figure out the truth. Without me, neither of you would have had a clue of the certain death waiting for you on the other side."

He poked an aggressive finger into the centre of Erwin's chest and looked him dead in the eyes.

"All of this was necessary just to keep you alive! Understand?"

He did. Erwin's plans were pathetically subpar to the preparations Levi had been laying out all this time.

Papa had confronted Erwin not even a day after he had discovered the truth, and though Erwin bluffed his way through the encounter, the fact that he'd been suspected so soon was disheartening. Levi, who spoke honestly and always showed his true intentions through his actions and emotive eyes if not his words, had lied through his teeth and pretended to be surprised when Erwin first told him about the titans, and the blonde had been none the wiser.

Erwin knew the shorter boy was capable of being cunning - it didn't escape him that Levi was sometimes able to beat him at chess or tag games simply because of an unconventional tactic he'd managed to keep hidden from Erwin - and yet again, he had underestimated him. It had always been that way, Erwin realised. Even though they'd grown up together and he'd slept in the bed next to his each night, Levi had lived a completely different life to him, simply because he'd known the truth this whole time.

"Anyways," Levi drawled. "I can agree with some of your demands. I'll tell you whatever information is relevant. But don't assume I'm your ally just because I'm not your enemy. I need one more thing from you."

"What's that?"

"Keep lying to Hange." Erwin sat up a little straighter, curious. "Pretend we're taking everyone but ditch them all last-minute. If you think Moblit and Miche are capable enough to fend for themselves, fine. But no one else."

"You said that everyone was improving during It," he tried.

"That doesn't mean they won't still be a burden by the time we escape," Levi responded bluntly.

"I thought you'd agree to help with the plan of escaping with everyone. Is that not what you want?"

"Come off it, Erwin. You know just as well as I do that personal feelings don't matter. We can't take them all. This is my way of helping. If you don't want to take the advice of someone who's been thinking about all this far longer than you, go ahead, but I won't march to your deaths along with you."

"If you've really spent all this time working for us to survive, you won't let us do that."

"And if you're gonna try something that means you'll definitely die, I'd rather you just wait to get eaten. What's your decision? I haven't got all day," he muttered.

Erwin sighed. "Fine."

Levi stood up and moved to face him, grasping his shirt collar loosely, and the blonde went very still.

"You better not be lying to me, Erwin." His breath burned the shell of his ear.

"Of course."

With that, Levi hummed with satisfaction and left the dormitory.

As soon as the door clicked shut, Erwin's posture slumped, and he gripped the bedcovers to try and prevent himself from falling forward onto the floor. Hell.

He hated arguing with either of them. They were all control freaks, but Erwin wasn't as nearly as in control of that situation as he'd intended on being.

It should have been a fantastic turn of events. Not only would the traitor move to their side, but they also had crucial information and the ability to solve one of the most significant obstacles preventing their escape. They wouldn't have been able to get so far without him, and, whether intentionally or not, simply Levi's presence in their lives had played a big part in cultivating the people they'd become, capable of even thinking about trying to escape their fates.

They had all been competitive with their test scores, which motivated them to improve twice as fast. Levi had thrown many scientific and technological books at Hange over the years, piquing their curiosity, and he'd probed Erwin's methodology and thought processes, as well as challenged the expected beliefs to hold and assumptions in the books the blonde read. Erwin played It by viewing each runner as an individual enemy to outwit in their own distinct way because Levi had taught him to do so, simply by being a ridiculously difficult target even when they were younger and much more balanced in their pace and stamina. And he'd only ever thought there was a chance the fence wasn't protecting them from something because Levi had said so.

Last week wasn't the first time Erwin had been to the gate. He clearly recalled how he'd pestered Levi, face buried in a book under the tree he liked sitting at, along with Hange one day, the latter of which was begging their older brother to stop reading for five minutes and go play with them. That day, he had agreed.

"Fine. Let's go to the gate. I've always wanted to see what was there."

Erwin was really nervous, never one to break the rules, but Hange seemed excited that they were finally doing something all together, and Levi was looking at him in a way that made him feel like he was being a baby if he didn't agree to go with them. He liked learning new things, anyway - and definitely things he wasn't supposed to know yet. It made him feel good when he was taught stuff he already learned by himself. If he already knew the answer to a question and he got it correct the first time, Papa would praise him for it, and his other siblings would look at him with awe. They liked him when he did smart things.

The three of them couldn't really see anything past the locked bars once they were there. Just a long archway with a door at the end, and some boxes lying around. They spent a few minutes guessing what could be on the other side, and what they'd do once they left the orphanage when they were adopted, and then Levi decided to take them away again.

"This is boring. Let's go back before we get caught."

They were only five years old.

If he'd known since then, as Erwin feared, then he'd been aware of the truth for at least six years. Despite being only a year older, he'd always been so much mature than them. He never radiated the innocence that the younger kids did, though Erwin had chalked it up to being unaware of it at the time, given that he was even younger himself.

Levi was cooking and cleaning with supervision as far back as he could remember, and was the youngest he'd ever seen to have permission to take care of the infants in the evenings, even though he was so little he looked a bit silly holding them in his arms compared to their older siblings. He didn't like when other people tried to help him with his tasks, preferring his independence, or perhaps he thought others inconvenienced him.

He was born with table manners and a disdain for the dirtiness of the other children. The closest to messy he ever got was when he woke up first thing in the morning, his hair sticking up in various directions and sleepwear a little ruffled, and even then, Levi woke up so early that Erwin only ever got to see him like that when pulling all-nighters. Other than that, Levi was immaculate in his presentation, meticulous with his actions, straight-cut with his words. He did only what was necessary, and it made him Papa's perfectly poised puppet, and one that did not falter in his performance.

This was everything Erwin objectively knew about Levi. Recalling it all didn't really help, however, with trying to break down his true intentions. He clearly had his own idea of the plan in place, and it had been inconvenienced more than he'd liked by Brother Reiner's arrival. Erwin couldn't see what the significance of an additional caretaker could be to their escape, so whatever ideas Levi thought were ruined must be his personal ones, instead of their collective escape plan.

He wondered if Papa had brought in Brother specifically to test Levi's allegiance. Surely the possibility of him swaying to Erwin and Hange's side would have been considered, and some counter would have been put in place to do that, even if Papa thought that Levi defecting was extremely unlikely.

Erwin had assumed that Papa thought Levi wouldn't betray him, and that's what made this so difficult. His intention was to figure out a way to take all the children with them. Even if he didn't know if it could be done, Hange would certainly be spending their time searching for a viable method to do so. If they spent too much time working on that and not on a plan that could be easily executed with just a few of them, Levi might decide that his survival was more certain if he remained allied with Papa, and betray them once more.

Even so, Erwin agreed with Hange that Papa would likely dispose of Levi if the rest of them successfully escaped, so to keep him alive, he had to go with them. It was more beneficial to all of them if he truly was on their side. Hange wasn't a fool by any means, but it would be easier to get them to rely on their friendship and then ditch the other children mid-escape than it would be to outmanoeuvre Levi, who knew far too much already, and had been playing this game of strategy and deception far longer than the rest of them.

And Erwin would never dare tell another soul how afraid he was to die. If he could prioritise a few of them surviving over the risk of everyone dying, he'd do it. He wanted to keep living. He wanted his plan to work, even a little bit. Even if it meant not everyone was saved.

Through his blurring vision, Erwin's attention was drawn towards a picture on the bulletin board. Walking towards it on shaky legs, he took in the three stick figures with distinctly different hair colours and felt overwhelmed with the nostalgia of it. It was only a moment later that his brain corrected him. This was his dormitory, not Hange's, so their drawing wouldn't be displayed here. Though it should have been taken down the day he left, it was Eren's. Papa must have forgotten, with all that had gone on.

Erwin lifted a hand to rip it off, but found he couldn't bring himself to do it. He was already too in his head about Levi and Hange, and Eren's picture was strikingly similar to the one in the other dorm. Erwin couldn't be the one to erase the last bit of evidence that Eren had lived here, either. To become aware of the truth made saying goodbye even indirectly far more difficult.

He didn't understand how Levi had watched their siblings get taken away every couple of months to get eaten and not done a thing to stop it. Had he even cared? He'd waited until the very last shipment before his own to launch the escape. If Erwin was a year older instead, would Levi have let him walk out that gate without a second thought?

Perhaps not getting attached was something he was used to. Erwin loved his siblings, but from a reasonable distance, given the nature of an orphanage, and had learnt to do so the hard way.

When they were really little, the children tended to pair up with those born in the same year as themselves. That had worked for Erwin, because he'd bonded with Hange just fine. But Levi had always been fighting with the other boy his age, Nile, and eventually Papa had permanently separated them. Levi's new buddy was Hange, and Erwin's was Nile.

That had been fine, because the two boys got along really well. They argued sometimes, but that was usually over trivial things like the meanings of words and who got to read a book first. Erwin remembered that Nile had been smart, but he'd also gotten rather sick shortly after his fourth birthday, and Erwin had read his study books to him in the infirmary. He was allowed to sleep in the dormitory again after a few weeks, but was still a little groggy, and by the turn of the year, he had apparently been adopted.

Erwin had cried a lot when Nile left. Now, he found he couldn't even remember his voice, nor many details of his appearance.

The dynamics had changed a lot since then. Erwin had said goodbye to several good friends over the years, but it had been easier, because his circle had grown wider over time, and he'd grown old enough to understand and accept when someone was leaving. He'd been under the impression that it was because they were going to live a better life elsewhere. That was far from correct, of course, which made a lot of things hurt a lot more as he thought back on them.

He wondered if he would have cracked under the pressure if he'd known what would happen to them. More likely, however, he probably never would have bothered making friends with them in the first place, if he'd been aware that he would never see or hear from them again once they left. He supposed that was what Levi had done. He'd figured out the shipping order early, considered Erwin and Hange as safe people to form a friendship with, and emotionally distanced himself from everybody else as not to hurt himself.

But recently, he'd been breaking that pattern. Earlier this year, when Isabel and Eren had turned five, he'd oddly agreed to help them study for their tests, since they were both lagging behind. Erwin assumed it was some kind of two-way attachment: the infants raised in the babies' room often favoured the older siblings that had tended to them once they grew into toddlers. Isabel had probably been the first new infant to come to the orphanage when Levi started helping out with the babies, if Erwin recalled correctly, with Eren a couple of weeks behind her.

Eren always insisted on doing everything by himself, but never protested when Levi did something for him, a prime example being dressing him right up until the day he left. Isabel could be rather rambunctious, but usually listened to Levi if he told her to cut it out, and went to him first if she was upset or wanted attention or help with something. Levi indulged in these interactions more than he would with any of the other children, so he must have cared about them all to some degree.

Another exception, now Erwin really thought on it, was Furlan, who had been following Levi around and asking him to read his books aloud since he could walk and talk, sitting with him at the tree or in the library. There had been plenty of times where a child had approached the elder boy, been brushed off, and found someone else to spend their time looking up to. Furlan was smart and reasonably independent; Erwin liked him too. But he was another of the rare few that Levi had decided to let in at less than an arm's length away.

Furlan made more sense, as he was unlikely to get shipped before Levi. Really, everyone six and above was rather adept and scored high on the tests.

That left the five-year-olds on the bottom rung of the food chain, and in the end, it had been Eren who'd finished last. If it weren't for Levi turning twelve, Isabel would probably be next. Perhaps he miscalculated, and didn't think he'd be outliving them when he decided to let them in. Hange had mentioned him being particularly withdrawn the day Eren departed, after all. Considering everything, his misery made perfect sense.

And for that reason, Erwin couldn't wrap his head around why Levi would still suggest to leave them all behind. What could be so awful about the outside world that he would rather the younger children were left to die a certain death here? He wasn't completely heartless, because it had been hurting him, even if only a little.

Papa, on the other hand, had lied through his teeth even more skilfully than Levi, and continued to do so every day, entirely unaffected by the weight of his actions.

It was as if he were a different man now Erwin knew the truth, and he cursed himself for his own ignorance and blind love for his parental figure. He would probably have to listen to Levi and kill both Papa and Brother Reiner if it became necessary for their escape. After the discovery of his brother's position, Erwin would no longer be so naive and softhearted. Anything and anyone could be out to get them, and he'd happily sacrifice his morals if it ensured all the children could get out of this alive, along with anything else. The most important thing was that they lived. For that, there was no cost too great.

Erwin's full understanding came to him all at once. His body finally gave out as he threw up onto the floor.

10th November, 14:26

"What's the situation with the fake ropes?" Hange asked.

They were holed up in the library during free time as it was raining. Usually Hange wouldn't be deterred, but there was no need to risk anyone catching an early winter cold and use up any medicine supplies before they left.

"I'm the traitor."

"Levi-" Erwin tried to interject, but the elder boy held up his hand, silencing him.

"Huh?" Was all Hange managed to say.

"I'm Papa's source. It's me."

They understood the meaning of the words. The logic behind him saying it, however, was beyond them.

"What do you mean?" They asked quietly.

"Let me explain," Erwin cut in, and filled them in.

They started to relax as he went into the finer details of Levi's confession. They had been thrown entirely off base for a second, thinking their whole life and understanding of their best friend had been mistaken. Of course Levi wasn't actually an enemy. The issue had been that they misinterpreted the spy to be a traitor, as opposed to a neutral source that could be utilised both ways.

"Years of work," they muttered in awe. "I can't believe you let me waste my time in here looking for a way to break the trackers when you've already got it all planned. Did you remove those pages?"

"No, the books have always been that way. And it's your own fault for finding out about the trackers in the first place. I was planning to tell you about my position right after you two went to the gate. But then someone-" he glared at them, "left Eren's key there, and Papa found out that someone else knew about the secret. And he didn't even know you'd been to the gate until he noticed you acting weird. He just thought Eren dropped it. I had to save face with him and try and guide you along at the same time because you had the insane idea of bringing three-dozen other kids with you."

This again, Hange thought with irritation.

"So you were too busy covering our mistakes to tell us, fine. But you're seriously against bringing everyone like you said before, aren't you?" They asked him coldly.

"Yeah. But if you're really that set on it, it's not like I can convince you to change your mind. May as well help you and make sure your plan works, rather than leave it half-baked."

Hange frowned. Though they were beyond bored of this argument, they hadn't expected Levi to give in, stubborn as he was - as they all were, to be honest. Changing his mind wasn't an easy feat.

"That's not like you."

"Do you think he's lying?" Erwin asked.

He's not a liar, Hange almost said, before remembering that Levi had, in fact, been lying about this particular thing for years. Though it was in good faith, so they could forgive him for that. And they refused to believe the older boy would actually choose to save himself along with those who were fully capable of surviving independently and leave the rest of their younger siblings to die.

"No. I'm glad we don't have to disagree on this moving forward. Welcome to the light side, shorty!"

Levi rolled his eyes.

Privately, Hange did find it unsettling that he'd not only been the spy, but had been for a long time before Hange and Erwin had gone to the gate. He must have hated trying to figure it all out by himself. And rarely did they curse their curious mind, but they couldn't ignore the fact that they had nothing of value to contribute now, excluding the information they had to report today, because Levi had already done their work on the trackers for them.

They imagined several ways he could have gone about experimenting, if the books in the library truly had been useless, but none of them were pleasant to think about.

"You've known about our siblings getting eaten the whole time, right?" They asked in a low voice. No one was in the library - they were positioned near the balcony again to watch the door - but they couldn't help being careful. Moblit and Miche would be arriving soon.

"Yeah."

"That must have been really painful."

Levi stared through them. Hange tried their best to think of something else to say, anything related to the escape or a different question about information that Levi might have, but they couldn't hold themself back anymore. They had to ask.

"Hey... what kinds of experiments did you conduct to figure out the trackers? Because you couldn't have tested the one on yourself. The placement of it's too awkward, even with a mirror."

In the corner of their vision, they saw Erwin stiffen up. They were surprised he hadn't thought about it yet.

"Wouldn't one of our siblings get sent off early if their alarm went off?"

Briefly, they heard a commotion just outside the door, several children laughing and screaming as they chased each other down the hallway. Other than that, it was quiet. Hange received no verbal answer.

"Never mind. What's done is done, however you managed it," they continued, and then they stepped towards Levi and gripped his hand with as much force as they could muster. "But there's no need for any more sacrifice of any kind, because we're going to save everyone. So don't ever do something like that again. Understand?"

The boy, to his credit, did not flinch in their grasp, though he was fully alert now. He even gave them a slight upturn of his lips, which surprised them.

"Yeah. I promise I won't do that." He linked their free hands briefly as if to shake on it, and they stepped back from one another.

"Good. I wonder if the other two will show up soon."

"I'll go get them." Levi was down the ladder and out the door without another word.

Hange turned to Erwin. "Are you alright? You look pale."

"Ate too quickly at lunch," he dismissed with a sheepish smile. Indeed, he'd been sitting against a bookcase with his arms more hugging his stomach than folded over it throughout their conversation. "What do you think?"

"About Levi?" They asked, and he nodded. "What I just told you both. He's fine. He'll be a strong ally."

"Alright."

Levi came back soon enough with Moblit and Miche in tow.

"Sorry. Toddlers were being a nightmare," Moblit explained, and they all sat down at one of the corner tables.

"It's okay! Did you bring it?" They asked him.

Moblit took out a folded sheet of paper from his pocket and spread it out over the table.

"A map of the ground floor?" Erwin frowned. "Or some of it, at least."

"Every day around eight in the evening, Papa disappears. He'll go into this hallway, so he could only be going to the washroom or his office, but if you look in those rooms you won't always find him. There must be another place he's going in the hallway, but the entrances aren't visible."

"A secret room?"

Hange nodded.

"We were counting the steps between the washroom and Papa's office," Moblit added. "There's about ten steps between the babies' room and the office, but the washroom in the babies' room only takes up half the width of that. There's a bit in between, and it might not just be an empty space closed off by walls."

"Ah, that's what you were doing earlier," Erwin realised. "Did you know, Levi?"

"Sort of. Papa has to make his reports somewhere in the orphanage, but I didn't bother looking for the exact location." That surprised them, especially considering he'd had a long time to figure this sort of thing out.

"He makes reports?"

"Well, yeah. He's gotta check in with headquarters. It's every evening, at that time when he disappears."

"Headquarters?" Moblit echoed.

"It's probably where they passed the babies and Brother Reiner through," Erwin reasoned. Hange guessed mentioning that Levi was a spy probably wasn't in their immediate plans.

"Let's go there," Miche stood up. "Papa and Brother Reiner have their hands full right now."

"His office will be locked."

"We'll go get the key, then. The younger kids knock stuff out his pockets all the time."

"It's a pointless risk, Miche," Levi cut in. "All that's in there is a means of communication or direct passage to the bad guys. It's not like we can ask whoever's on the other side where our siblings are." Hange was promptly reminded of the lie they were still sticking by, and felt uneasy. "The only information you'll get is what Papa might do with you if he catches you."

"Why are you deciding this?" Miche flared his nose.

Levi glowered back.

"It's an action not worth taking," Erwin spoke up. "While it could be useful, there's more to lose than gain. And we don't know exactly where the entrances are, so we won't be able to break into them anyway."

"Fine."

"Uh, we need to prepare dinner," Moblit said hesitantly.

Miche sighed and walked out of the library, and the shorter boy glanced back at the three of them with an apologetic smile before following him.

Hange felt a bit bad for them, but it was difficult to plan properly when Moblit and Miche didn't yet know the truth about their siblings, nor Levi being a spy. Hange wasn't sure the two of them would be as understanding of their elder brother's position as Erwin and themself were.

"It'll be like that for as long as you refuse to tell them the truth," Levi commented as if reading their mind.

"Not yet," Erwin said. "Right now, our next step is to try and investigate the outside world and prepare for surviving out there."

"True. I've been looking inside this place for six years. We have plenty of information about what's within the walls, so focusing on what's beyond them is important."

"Six?" Hange repeated faintly, and Levi looked away from them.

They thought Erwin had meant two or three when he'd said years. How... how had Levi managed to hide this from them this whole time? They prided themself on being able to read him better than anyone else, Erwin included, so they didn't understand how he'd gone undetected for this long. Were they really so socially obtuse that they missed all the signs, or did they just take that to be part of his personality?

"I figured," Erwin broke the silence. "Considering when we were little you were the one to lead us to the gate for the first time. You made us curious about the rules of the orphanage whilst gathering information about it at the same time, am I right?"

Hange's heart dropped. He had done that. They remembered. He really had known for that long.

Bless him. They couldn't imagine having to harbour so many truths to themself for six years. They put effort into keeping a neutral gaze even as their eyes burned with sympathy for him.

"Yeah. And I have a lot," Levi spoke quickly. "I think with everything we have, it'll be possible to escape via the wall."

"In that case, we've already completed the very first step by stowing away a rope for climbing it," the other boy declared. "Next is to get away from the orphanage entirely, and finally, to find a means of survival in which we can be self-reliant."

"We need to know the area surrounding the estates for that. It's a forest up to the wall, but there could be a desert or sea beyond it, for all we know."

"I'm pretty sure I saw more trees on the other side of the wall," Hange chipped in before Erwin could speak again. "The forest continues."

"Pretty sure doesn't cut it. Check again with these." From his pocket, Levi withdrew... binoculars?

"No way! I've always wanted to try these out. Will they work with my glasses on?"

"Figure it out yourself."

They turned the binoculars over in their hands with fascination. The contraptions Levi had in his possession always amazed them. They knew now, of course, how'd he'd gotten this item, along with the many others. They were glad he was so practical and got items innocent in isolation, yet useful in the context of escaping the orphanage.

"Maybe we can try them out tomorrow. What can we focus on for tonight?" They asked aloud.

"Something useful that you've probably not bothered to learn before." Levi slid out of his seat and made a round of the attic floor, grabbing several books from various shelves before returning. Hange and Erwin both peered at the covers as he set some down at the table.

"Outdoor living... oh, this is where you've been learning all that stuff you bang on about."

"Surviving in the wilderness isn't just stuff," Levi scoffed, halfway up climbing another bookcase in one of the far corners and taking another book from the top shelf. "And I don't bang on about it."

"You do. Well, it's useful now," they shrugged.

"It was always useful," he countered as he sat back down, adding the last book to the array on the table. "This'll be full of the basics. Water purifying, primitive medicine, wild animals, et cetera."

"I'm surprised these are allowed in the library," Erwin commented.

"It'd look suspicious if it wasn't. There's loads of nonfiction books in here, and even several fiction stories that touch on nomadic lifestyles. If a kid was curious about that, why wouldn't there be a book to help them learn that in greater detail? Besides, this wouldn't be enough on its own to help us live after escaping."

"What would be, then?" Hange frowned as they browsed the contents of the books.

"Specialist subject books on agriculture, cooking, stuff like that. A lot of domestic adulthood skills on top of figuring out how to do it all without installed plumbing or power. Don't bother with all that right now, though." Hange must have looked as daunted as they felt. "That's not stuff all of us needs to be an expert in. One person memorising each thing would be fine. But this survival stuff is something we all need to know. So get reading."

It was a long couple of hours, but Hange managed to get through at least one of the survival books with brief note-taking by the time the clock chimed for five o'clock. They sighed loudly and stretched as Levi put each book back exactly where he'd found them.

"We're going to have to grab supplies for all this stuff as well, aren't we?" They groaned.

"Unless you already have stuff hidden away," Erwin tacked on.

"Not enough for a large group," Levi replied, and the three of them descended the attic and left for the dining hall. "And I'm not disclosing my spots out loud. Find your own."

"I wasn't asking," Hange muttered.

When they opened the door to the dining hall, Sasha and Mina ran straight out, both laughing, and Nanaba stood in the middle of the room halfway through yelling at them, cutlery and napkins clasped to her chest.

Bit by bit, they sensed that something wasn't quite right. Furlan was a similar state of frenzy with plates in his arms. The table hadn't even been set yet. Why were they running so late?

"Where are Moblit and Miche?" They dreaded to ask.

"I'd love to know," Nanaba spat out, rushing around the tables and setting the cutlery out.

Frozen to the spot, Hange watched Erwin march straight into the kitchen, and their heart beat faster as he came back out with a strained smile.

"Gelgar and Nifa are finishing up dinner."

Shoot. They couldn't believe Moblit and Miche. They'd skived their kitchen duties, and the only explanation they could come up with was that the two of them were trying to get into Papa's secret room. How could they be so reckless?

"Those idiots," Levi seethed.

As if on cue, footsteps came up behind them, and they turned to find the two boys in question approaching the dining hall.

"There you are!" Hange exclaimed with a sigh. We were wor-"

"Where were you?" Levi hissed, stepping right under Miche's chin and craning his head up at him.

Miche, unexpectedly, met his glare with an equal ferocity.

"Let's do this after dinner," Erwin spoke loudly.

Hange managed to turn to him, and saw Thomas peering out from behind his leg. They couldn't argue here when the younger ones were watching. They might tell Papa if they thought there was a fight happening.

Dinner was tense. It was easy to tell that the boys had indeed been doing their own investigating; Miche's posture was stiff, and Moblit refused to look at any of them. Hange busied themself with cutting the younger children's food and trying to convince Floch to eat his vegetables, but the distraction didn't stop their hands from shaking ever so slightly from the trepidation of the upcoming conversation.

When it was finally over, they cleared up the plates as slowly as they could, waiting for Papa and the other children to clear out so the five of them could talk.

"We went to Papa's secret room," Miche disclosed as soon as they had all sat down again. Hell.

"How?" Erwin's brows furrowed - from frustration or confusion, they did not know.

"Moblit picked the lock."

"What?" Hange couldn't help from exclaiming. "Moblit, what?"

"I saw Levi do it once," Moblit whispered, shaking. The aforementioned boy glared daggers at him.

"Has everyone seen Levi lock-picking except for me?"

"There's a book in the library that explains how to do it in more detail."

"You could've given me that one," they hissed at Levi.

"Shut up," he said back, and turned his attention back to Moblit. "Did you pick into the actual room as well?"

"No," the timid boy answered. "The secret room was behind the bookcase in his office and led down to a basement. The... what was probably a communication mechanism was hidden behind another bookcase. It moved by itself when we got near enough to it."

"Did you pick it closed on the way out? Did Papa notice you'd been in there?"

"I don't think so."

"You don't think so," Levi scowled. "Do you have any idea what would have happened to you if he'd caught you?"

"What would have happened?" Miche raised his voice all of a sudden. "Tell us. Would we be killed?"

The room went silent.

"That's a bi-" Erwin started.

"Just because we aren't as clever as you doesn't mean we can't tell you're keeping stuff from us. You said you barely saw Eren leave and couldn't tell if he was safe, but also that the people who took him were bad. How can you know that, Erwin? I can smell a lie as bad as that."

"You haven't said no. You really think we'd be killed?" Moblit asked.

Hange closed their eyes.

"What happened to our siblings?" Miche demanded. "There's files of all of them down there, and no record of addresses that they were sent to. Just a marked date that they were sent away. That's not natural."

"Even if they were being sold off, Papa would have records of a fake address. If... If Papa knew we found out the secret, he could just send us away early. But if you think we'd be killed... Then, were our siblings...?" He couldn't finish his thought.

They exhaled shakily. It was time to tell the truth. "Yeah."

A few seconds of silence followed their admission.

"I told you when they said they were going to save them it was a lie," Miche said with gritted teeth. "They still don't trust us at all."

Moblit looked crestfallen.

"I'm sorry, I - I just thou-" They tried.

"Just tell us the truth, Hange," Moblit pleaded. "Please."

They couldn't. Erwin did.

There were many reasons why they should have told the two boys the truth sooner, but what would have been made immediately clear was Levi's position as the spy. The horrified expressions on both Moblit and Miche's faces demonstrated how people naturally reacted when they first found out the secret. They never wanted to see those faces again. Yet they would have to, because they needed to tell the rest of the children as well. Awful.

"A facility where we get eaten by giants?" Moblit summarised shakily.

Hange found they'd lost the ability to look at anyone, and fiddled with the tablecloth.

"And Levi knew the whole time," Miche stated. "You knew what would happen to Eren." If Levi responded, it was a silent gesture. "And then you two thought it would be fine to trick us into going into a world full of people who want us dead."

Neither Hange nor Erwin answered him.

A fully vocal huff made its way out of Miche's throat, and then the legs of a chair screeched, and Hange looked up just in time to see Levi clatter backwards onto the floor.

"Levi!" Erwin stood up, but Miche pulled back his raised fist and punched him square in the face, causing him to stumble backwards into the table and chair next to him and land awkwardly on the floor.

Before they'd even noticed, Miche had leaned over the table and grabbed them by the collar, pulling them towards him. They closed their eyes once more as they saw his free hand pulling back again.

"Miche, please stop!" Moblit yelled, and Hange felt him pulling backwards on their shoulder. "Stop this! It doesn't do anything. Put them down."

Slowly, Hange felt the fingers on their collar release. They collapsed onto the table and rested their forehead on their palms, their throat tightening.

"You are so incredibly stupid sometimes, Erwin," Miche spat out.

"I just didn't want you to worry," Hange choked out, partly muffled by the table.

"We understand that, but if we had been caught, we would be dead!" Moblit's voice wavered, and Hange sobbed then. "Are we that much of a burden? We're only a year younger than you, and you're hiding the truth from us like we're toddlers who can't handle it! Are we so weak and useless to you after all this time?" He croaked.

"Aren't families supposed to get through issues together?" Miche whispered, though everyone heard him clearly. "Have some faith that we won't ruin everything for you."

He left abruptly, as did Moblit.

Hange wiped their eyes and sat up to check on the other two boys. Erwin had returned to his seat, rubbing his scrunched up face, whereas Levi sat on the floor against the wall, an arm flung over his knee with a downcast gaze.

"I was wrong to keep it from them," Hange apologised quietly. "I should have spoken up."

"We were both wrong," Erwin murmured. "It was cruel, and dangerous. I didn't anticipate that they would both take action themselves, and that impulsively."

"You're the one who said you'd deal with any consequences of lying to people," Levi reminded him.

Hange stood up. "I'm going to apologise. We need to be honest and upfront with others if we're all gonna escape together."

They left the dining hall and slipped out the side door, where Miche typically went on the rare occasions he needed to cool off. Sure enough, he was standing a fair bit away from the door, facing the forest. Moblit sat cross-legged on the floor beside him.

It occurred to Hange that whilst the two often hung out in different groups to one another, they seemed very familiar now. It was probably because Hange hardly spent time with Moblit anymore, and he had no one else around his age to turn to. It saddened them further, and solidified their need to resolve this immediately.

"Miche. Moblit." Moblit turned around swiftly when they announced themself, but Miche stayed put. "I owe you more than saying sorry, but that's all I've got. I should've had faith in your ability to handle the truth about the orphanage and outside world. I've broken your trust twice now, even though you believed in us. It's not fair on you."

"Me too, for the exact same reasons," Erwin added from behind them, walking up to the group and illuminating them with the lantern in his hand. "I misjudged your capabilities. You're correct. At the end of the day, we're siblings, and we need to work through this together with absolute belief in one another."

Miche huffed. "I didn't mean to punch you as well. Are you alright?"

"I'll be fine. I deserve much worse than a punch."

"No, I lost my head. My fault."

"Sorry for acting on our own and not listening to you," Moblit said softly, fidgeting with his sleeves. "That could've gone awfully and blown the whole escape. I knew you must have had a reason for not telling us everything. I didn't consider it enough."

"It's our fault for not explaining how dangerous it was," Erwin assured him. "Because of that, we did the opposite of protecting you from harm, just as we did when we kept the full truth from you. I should have considered that before making a decision. It won't happen again. Come, Levi."

Hange hadn't noticed him standing in the doorway until Erwin shone the lantern in his direction. His face looked terribly swollen. He had definitely come off worse from Miche's fist, being significantly shorter and skinnier than Erwin.

"Fine," he mumbled, and approached them. "I'll cover for you guys if you mess up in front of Papa anyway. And... I'm sorry for all the other things I did as a spy."

Moblit smiled and Miche nodded in response.

Hange clasped their hands together. "Okay! Now that we've aired all that muck out, let me ask again. You're free to say no, and we'll carry on as is, but we'd very much like for you to join us. Are you guys willing to help us with our escape?"

"Of course," Moblit answered.

"Yup," Miche tilted his head at Levi. "I'm not sorry about you, but it was too rough. You and Erwin, come to the infirmary."

Levi shrugged, but followed suit as they all filed back into the building.

Hange was immensely grateful that nothing awful had come out of Moblit and Miche's investigation. They hated that they'd broken their siblings' trust like that, but at least now they had learned how they needed to approach the escape with the other children. The silver lining was that it was better that they messed up with the oldest kids as opposed to the younger ones, when convincing them to believe them and stay quiet would be much more difficult a task.

11th November, 11:11

"Hey, Erwin," Hange said when they were doing the washing the following morning. As much as they hated the task, it had become one of the best places for discussing the plan, as there were few children tall enough to reach the top of the clothesline. "You got time to hear an idea out?"

"What is it?"

"I've been thinking a bit on how exactly we're going to get everyone out. Last night showed us that Moblit, Miche, and likely a lot of the others aren't as immature as we thought. Realistically, if we want to take everyone with us, they need to be given a good reason to escape and take it seriously enough that they won't get caught giving anything away. And we can't lie to them, so I think we should start telling them."

"Start - you mean now?" Erwin's brows raised.

"It would be helpful if more people could contribute to our preparations. Everything could move a little faster. And if Papa and Brother Reiner are focused solely on us oldest kids, it means they're not watching the younger ones enough. The numbers we have is our one main advantage over Papa that we're not utilising right now." Erwin stared at the ground, deep in thought. "Do you think that's too risky?"

"Yes," he responded easily, and they deflated a little.

"Still, I think it's the best way to catch Papa off guard, and the only plausible method for having everyone escape with us."

The younger boy sighed. "That's true. If..." he hesitated. "If we start with-"

"Erwin," Miche called out from the house's entrance, Moblit following behind them. Both held various jars in their hands. "We got it."

"Thanks, you two," Erwin took the jars. "This will be useful for our investigation tomorrow."

"How?" Moblit asked. "Isn't the next stage to see what's on the other side of the wall? What about the trackers you mentioned?"

"That's easy," Hange patted his shoulder. "All we need is a distraction."

"Exactly," Erwin said, glancing around. The other children were completing their own tasks either out of view or inside, so he led them to the wall to continue their discussion more privately. "In the same way Levi is distracting Papa right now, he'll be doing the same tomorrow, informing him about these stolen items and how they could potentially be dangerous. It'll divert Papa's attention for sure. You two will probably be lookouts, in case Levi needs to signal that Papa is coming outside or checking the compass."

"Right," Moblit said uneasily. "What about Brother Reiner?"

"I've got a plan in place for him too."

Miche sniffed loudly and then froze, his head swivelling to the right. Hange followed his gaze, and there, standing right behind the tree they were passing, was Brother Reiner himself, staring intensely at them.

"I heard everything last night in the dining hall. The target is all five of you."

Shoot.

Brother approached the four of them with slow, purposeful strides. Hange was reminded of his sheer size in comparison to the rest of them. Even Miche, who stood at over five feet tall, barely came up to his neck. With how wide and muscled he was, he reminded them a bit of the wall surrounding the orphanage, looming over them and trapping them.

Hange glanced at Erwin, at a loss for what to do. This was extremely detrimental to their plan. They'd have to stop him before he told Papa, but how to go about doing that was a mystery.

Before any of the children could respond to him, however, Brother Reiner asked them a question.

"How would you like to work together?"

"Huh?" They blinked.

Brother stared at them, unsmiling.

"We'll hear you out," Erwin took a step forward, turning back briefly to give them what was probably supposed to be a reassuring smile.

"It would benefit both of us if we cooperated to achieve our goals," Brother told them. "Your aim is to escape, and mine is to get your Papa fired from his position and take over as the caretaker of Shiganshina House."

"You want to replace him?" Moblit echoed.

"Yes. I'd like to get rid of this, ideally."

Brother Reiner referred to the yellow spiked band on his left arm. It was the same that Papa wore, and almost identical to the white bands that were sewed onto all the clothing of the children at the orphanage.

"How's replacing Papa going to help with that? Isn't his the same?" Hange asked.

"Do you know how the titan powers are passed down to others?"

"They're eaten," Erwin replied.

"Yes, but they like to choose particular people to hold those powers once they get them out of the orphanage, or when others' time is up. There will be one available for taking soon, and those that inherit them get their armband upgraded to red. It gives us more freedom. I'll have a good chance of getting one if I can prove Zeke's been careless with the secret."

"What's the significance of the yellow ones?"

"Candidates for the titan powers. White is for regulars. I was put in an orphanage just like this when I was young, but I met the requirements to be a warrior candidate."

A collective gasp sounded amongst the four children.

"You mean not everyone gets eaten?" Hange asked with wide eyes.

"It was a unique situation. There were no powers circulating in the orphanages at the time, so high scorers like myself were given an opportunity. But even if you could have done the same, I wouldn't recommend it. Once you've got a yellow armband, you're truly stuck in the system, and you can't leave their sight."

Before anyone could ask what he meant, Brother Reiner undid the top view buttons of his shirt and revealed a large scar running vertically down the middle of his chest.

"What's that from?" They peered over Miche's shoulder to observe.

"There's a power circuit inside. If I step a foot outside the facility without a titan power, it will trigger and send an electrical current to my heart and kill me instantly. If my heart stops, the tracking mechanism will inform the higher-ups."

"So we can't kill the adults after all," Erwin murmured, and the other three turned to him in shock. Of course they couldn't! Hange couldn't believe he would ever consider such a thing.

"Unless I'm granted a red armband, I have to spend all my life in these farms. Experience as a caretaker adds credit to my name, and increases my chances. To achieve that, Zeke needs to be removed from his post sooner rather than later. If you escape, he'll be blamed and struck off the list, which will benefit me."

"You're not going to ship us out?" Moblit spoke timidly. After his last private encounter with Brother Reiner, Hange couldn't blame him for hiding behind them a little.

"I won't." Brother Reiner leaned down and outstretched his right hand for Erwin to shake. "Do we have an agreement?"

"Not yet," Hange interjected before Erwin took it. "How do you know that we won't betray us?"

"You don't trust me?" He smiled lightly.

"No," they answered.

Brother laughed. "Good. But your double-edged sword is our bargaining point. If Levi tells your Papa, I'll be killed without a second thought. If I tell him Levi's double-crossing him and helping you escape, you'll all be shipped out and eaten. It's not wise for us to betray one another."

For a moment, all the children regarded him, and he stared back impassively. Eventually, Erwin grasped his hand and shook it firmly, sealing the deal.

"Excellent." Brother Reiner stood back up to his full height and folded his arms. "It's time you get back before lunch, if you don't want anyone to know you've been out here. But I have plenty of information I'm willing to share to help you escape. Come to my room tonight, if you're interested," he called back to them as he walked back out of the forest.

"Well, this makes tomorrow's inspection easier," Erwin said once Brother was out of sight. "We won't have to worry abo-"

"Are you kidding me?" Hange burst out. "He's awful. He's been in our exact position before, and all he can think about is his own gain. He'll continue the cycle of shipping us all out even though he's had siblings that have been killed because of it! He doesn't care about children at all."

"I agree. But he has no evidence of an escape plan that could be presented to his higher-ups to bring Papa down," he claimed. "So as long as we don't give him any and use him exclusively as an information source, I think we'll be fine."

"What about the rope?" Miche asked.

"The rope can be used to play with, like making a swing, for example. He couldn't conclusively use that on its own. The tracker-breaking device Hange and Levi are working on, though, would be an issue if it was discovered."

They all began making their way back to the orphanage, making sure they walked slowly enough as not to catch up to Brother Reiner.

"If he finds the parts to that..." Moblit trailed off.

"He won't," Erwin assured him. "We'll tell Levi as soon as we're back. You know him, if he wants something hidden, it won't be found. Besides, if we go to Brother's room tonight and pretend we know nothing of the trackers other than that they exist, he won't think we're already preparing to break them."

Just as they exited the forest, the bell chimed noon for lunch, and they sped up to get into the orphanage before their lack of presence was noticed.

"Hange, can you go and tell Levi what just happened?" Erwin asked. "I need to talk to Moblit and Miche as soon as we're done eating. I'll fill you in later."

"Sure," they smiled as they walked into the dining hall.

Levi was already sat down between Furlan and Eld, but he glanced at them when they passed him. There was a large gauze pack taped to his cheek. They gave him a look with wide eyes and raised eyebrows, and he tilted his head into the direction of the kitchen.

Within ten minutes, they had wolfed down their food and begun washing up their plates. Levi joined them soon after, and they filled him in.

"You're not seriously gonna take him up on his offer?" Levi asked, astonished. "That's definitely a trap. If you go to his room, that's more than enough evidence that you're plotting to leave."

"We need to, shorty. As much as I don't want to talk to him at all, there's so much he knows. He can tell us everything we might need to know."

"I doubt that. He doesn't need to tell you enough to escape successfully. He just needs the evidence that you're trying to. And if everyone gets caught after escaping, it won't matter to him. He might even get praised for it."

Hange bit their lip, darting briefly out of the kitchen to grab the last few utensils to wash up. "Erwin thinks we should."

"I wasn't asking Erwin, was I?"

"Well, I don't see that we have that much of a choice! This is a unique opportunity. You were the one that said we should use Brother Reiner for information."

"That was before all of this. It's different now."

"It's not," they argued. "It's not like we're going to act on his information only. We've still got the investigation tomorrow, and we're not giving him hints as to what you and I are doing. As for getting caught in Brother's room by Papa, can't you just distract him again?"

"With what information? Everything I have is reserved for tomorrow. Do you expect me to just pull something out of nowhere?"

"Thought that was your job," they muttered.

Levi scowled. "You two are absolute pieces of work. Why do you always get into more trouble the second I leave you alone?"

"That's our job," Hange grinned.

"You're not funny."

"I disagree."

"As you always do."

They became very solemn at that. "I feel like that's all we've done recently. I don't want to fight."

"It's fine."

"Is it?"

"This was never gonna be easy. It's... important that we don't just accept the first solution that comes to mind. You should always pick on it and see if there's something better. Otherwise you'll end up like Erwin, with your head swelling to try and fit your ego. It's really done a number on his eyebrows."

"Don't be mean!" They whacked him with a towel, cackling all the while. He smirked. "I understand, though. It's one of the most important rules of experimental science to aim to prove your idea incorrect rather than correct."

"Good. Papa will have a much easier time picking the plan apart if it's just Erwin's. Better that you go with a combination of ideas, so it's harder to predict."

"We're already implementing stuff that Erwin doesn't really agree with. I forgot to tell you, but I think it'll work."

"That's fine. Save it for another time, though. I have to think of some plausible rubbish to make up on your behalf," Levi said, drying off the worktop around the sink.

They smiled sheepishly. "Through thick and thin."

They held their hand out to him. He looked at it before hanging the towel over it.

"You'll drip water over the floor."

Hange sighed, threw the towel over his face, and ran out of the kitchen before he could retaliate.

11th November, 21:02

It was Hange and Erwin who were sent to talk to Brother Reiner after bedtime, as decided by their group discussion with Moblit and Miche during free time, where they drafted a brief plan and list of questions for the man.

"Oh, you came!" He seemed pleasantly surprised as he opened the door for them. "Ask away."

Hange and Erwin looked at each other briefly before stepping through, and they closed the door behind them. They were a little nervous, as this was an important and unique situation, but hopeful that it would go to plan.

"We can ask anything?" Erwin took the lead.

"Sure. Whether that's about the titans, the facility here, anything."

Brother Reiner sat comfortably on his bed. The yellow band typically around his jacket laid on the bedside table. Erwin nudged Hange, and nodded at them when he had their attention. They took a deep breath and stepped forward.

"Show us the compass. The thing that can locate all the trackers." They held out their hand.

Brother looked surprised for a moment before smiling and pulling the compass out of his trouser pocket, handing it over. It was so unexpectedly heavy that Hange almost dropped it.

Carefully, they opened up the lid, revealing a single needle suspended on a cog, which wavered between Hange and Erwin. They took several steps back and held the compass out to their right before sweeping it towards the left, watching as the compass adjusted to remain pointed towards them. Then Hange held it back between themself and Erwin so that he could survey how the needle swivelled between each child in close proximity.

A magnet system was more primitive than they expected. But as they didn't feel any pulling in their ear, it was likely there was a magnet within the compass' circumference that adjusted its direction based on the incoming radio waves. There was also a dial that ran around the side, and when they turned it closest to themself, the needle wavered again and slowly swung towards the wall. Fascinating.

"It's useful, but has its limits," Brother Reiner explained. "It prioritises the locations of the closest children, and becomes weaker the more obstacles are between the compass and tracker. You knew about the tracking devices, then?"

"Papa showed us once," Erwin answered absentmindedly, watching the needle as Hange adjusted the dial again. "But we don't know where it is or how to break it."

"Do you?" Hange asked.

"Yes. They're located in your ear, right around here," Brother demonstrated without hesitation. Hange raised their eyebrows. "If they break, a signal is sent to both the compass and the higher-ups. You'd have to take it out or cut an ear off if you wanted to get rid of it.

"There aren't any good blades in the house," Erwin said.

"There's a scalpel for medical use."

"Once we're outside, we won't have medicine to treat possible infections."

"The infirmary has a good supply. Don't worry," Brother Reiner smiled warmly. "It should be enough for the five of you, and I can teach you how to administer medication and where the cabinet key is. No problem!" He put his palm to his chest.

Hange tried to ignore his unnatural enthusiasm and focused on the information at hand.

Between Moblit and themself, they could probably work out the medical side of things. A key wouldn't be necessary either if several of them could use lock-picks.

"How old are you?" They asked. "You said you were raised in here like us, right?"

"21. I was raised in the Paradis facility, but not this specific orphanage."

"How many are there?"

"I don't know for certain. But they've mentioned that I'm from the west district, and that this house, Shiganshina, is the south district. Potentially four, from that information, but there's no telling whether there's definitely a north and east district as well."

"Have you been a warrior candidate for the last ten years, then?" Erwin asked.

Brother Reiner nodded.

"How long do you stay as one for?"

"As long as it takes," he responded. "There are nine titan powers, and they can be held by a single person for up to thirteen years."

"Why thirteen?" Hange asked, reminded of a prior conversation.

"Because after thirteen years, the wielder will die. The moment you're bonded to a power, it activates a degenerative disease alongside the ability to call upon that power."

"Does that apply to those within the orphanage that are unaware that they may hold such a power?" Erwin asked without hesitation. Hange's body went very cold.

"Yes."

"And that's why you take those with the highest potential at twelve?"

Brother Reiner grinned widely at that. "You're very intelligent. Though I doubt I'm the first person to tell you that. That's the cutoff age, months spent in the womb taken into account."

"Are there physical symptoms that come with the end of the thirteen years?" Hange asked faintly.

"I've never seen it. Perhaps frailty, or a breakdown of the immune system."

"Then why do they need to test the younger kids? Or anyone, for that matter? Shouldn't it be obvious?" Their voice raised without them meaning to.

Brother's expression turned sombre. "Is this relevant to your escape?"

"It's extremely relevant considering it's the reason we need to escape in the first place!"

"Hange," Erwin put a hand on their shoulder.

They huffed and snapped the compass shut, thrusting it back at Brother Reiner.

"Papa has a yellow armband too. Do you know how long he's been a candidate?"

"I can tell you that's he's 29 years old. It's on his file."

"Was he also raised in an orphanage?"

"I imagine so."

"So he's been waiting longer than thirteen years. Why?"

"I can't answer that. The higher-ups will have their reasons."

"I see. Have you seen outside of the facility?"

"No."

"No?" They were both surprised by that.

"No," Brother repeated. "I was born, raised, and trained within these walls. I've never been beyond headquarters or the orphanages. The facility itself is large, though. It's where your food, clothes and medicine is procured."

"So," Hange started, "do you know how long the orphanages have been around?"

"I don't."

"Or how long titans have been used by whoever's running them?"

"No."

"Where's the facility located?" They fixated him with a desperate gaze.

"Not a clue."

"What's the security around the area like?" Erwin asked.

"There's not a great deal. A couple on the gate at all times. They're confident that the tracking devices are more than enough."

Hange and Erwin looked at one another, then back at Brother Reiner. It was silent for a moment.

"Thank you," Erwin said, and they both stepped towards the door.

"That's it?"

"Yes. Goodnight."

Hange had gripped the handle and turned it halfway before Brother Reiner burst out laughing. They loosened their grip in surprise and turned back around, as did Erwin.

"I wonder what we must have been like as children. We were probably bad liars too, huh?"

"What do you mean?" They asked. The cold chill returned.

"Spoken words are just one form of getting information from someone. You may have asked where the trackers were, but neither of you checked your ear. Children as smart as you are far too curious not to immediately check for yourself."

Hange remembered how both Erwin and Levi had done just that when they'd first informed them about it, even though the latter had already known.

He should have come instead. They were getting sick and tired of having nothing of use to contribute, messing up their own plans, and never learning from what someone who had already lived through what they were doing had been successful at. They felt stupid. Stupid and useless. How on earth were they supposed to help everyone escape alive if they couldn't do something as simple as lie when they were barely under any pressure?

"You couldn't have been less interested when I told you how you'd need to get rid of them either," Brother continued, pocketing his compass and pacing around the room. "I don't know why you'd bother asking such things. Were you seeing what information I'd be willing to give you? I'm your big Brother, you know. I'll help in any way you need."

"How many titan powers are they looking for right now?" Erwin asked after a moment of silence.

The man grinned, and approached them both. "Just one more," he told them in a very low voice. "And it's the most important one. They call it the Founder."

"The Founder?" Hange murmured.

Brother nodded, and ruffled their hair with a hand on each of their heads. Hange couldn't stop themself from physically cringing. "It's late now. But if you like, I can tell you next time you come here."

"We'll see," Erwin said, and turned back around swiftly. "Goodnight."

Once Brother's door closed behind them, Hange grabbed Erwin by the hand and dragged him into the bathroom.

"We can talk about this tomorrow with the others," he whispered.

"No we can't!" Erwin shushed them as angry tears welled up in their eyes. They gripped their trouser legs in an attempt to resist punching him. "There's no reason for them to eat us if they can tell when the older kids are dying from their power."

"They want us all dead, Hange. We're devilspawn."

Hange sobbed at his frank words. They knew it, really. They remembered the conversation, and they'd memorised the transcript. But it was just so hard to believe something so awful was happening when it was so illogical.

"He was five," they hiccuped.

"He was." They stood in silence for a moment as Hange tried to control their breathing. "Did you notice anything about Brother Reiner?"

"Yes!" They whisper-shouted. "He was so weird. So smiley but... not really in a fake way. I don't get him at all."

"I thought so too. It was very different from how he was earlier."

"What does it mean?" They were too tired to think for themself right now.

"I can't say. I don't know whether it's relevant. What we can take from this is that Papa and Brother don't have powers, and they've been waiting for a long time for them. Others have been chosen over them, so are likely much more capable. Plus, if there's only one left currently, they're probably competing to be chosen next."

"Great. That's what we need. More people that are much smarter than us to come and hunt us down."

"We'll work it out. We got what we came for, anyway."

"We didn't learn anything about the outside at all," they sulked.

"You know what I mean."

Hange sighed. "Yeah."

"Calm yourself down. Goodnight," Erwin quietly lifted the door handle and closed it back behind him.

Hange sat on the floor with their head in their hands.

If it weren't so late at night, they would have screamed. They were feeling too many things at once, and it was overwhelming.

Everything about this was horrific and disgusting. The more they learned, the less they understood. The only thing that was becoming more apparent to them was how inhumane it was, in every way. And for what purpose? War? They wanted no part in it. That they weren't even given a choice in the matter almost hurt as much as being involved to begin with. It was unfair. So unfair.

As they collected themself, they found that they were no longer hysterical, but still angry. There were many people to be angry at. Brother Reiner, for one. Both his motives and the contrasting ways he presented himself confused them to no end.

Erwin's complete stoicism in hearing such horrendous truths annoyed them as well. Hange didn't understand how he could just turn off his feelings like that.

Learning that Papa too had been in their position and not just Brother Reiner had really taken the cake, though. Why on earth would he try to stop them from escaping? If they were in his shoes, they'd certainly give their life so that others could live on. Especially if they were set up to not only inherit a power that would force them to fight in a war, but put a deadline on their life in the first place.

The bathroom door opened, and Hange shot up as Levi almost tripped over them.

"What are you doing?" He hissed.

"Nothing." They wiped their face.

Levi shook his head before turning to the sink, prising off the gauze on his cheek with a shaky hand. The purpling bruise starkly contrasted his pale skin, and it made them wince. He'd had few injuries before, but they always seemed to heal within a day or two, and never looked this bad.

"Do you need help?"

"No. Go to sleep. If Papa checks the compass now, he'll think we're exchanging information."

"Fine," Hange muttered, sick of their so-called best friends.

Levi didn't even look up from rinsing his face as they left.

They very much intended to sleep as to prepare for the investigation the next day, but found their mind was far too overactive. Tomorrow wouldn't grant them much time for talking out tonight's conversation with the others - and two of them were apparently completely uninterested in it, they thought bitterly - so they ended up in a mental dialogue with themself for several hours.

Dawn arrived before they knew it.

12th November, 10:49

"Let's go over the plan once more," Erwin said as the five of them spent the morning filling buckets with water.

"Don't you want to talk about last night?" Hange asked.

"Not right now. It's not relevant to what we'll be doing later."

"Right," they huffed a humourless laugh. Never mind the information about the last titan remaining or whatever.

They wondered if they were the only one who even cared about the bigger picture behind why they needed to escape in the first place.

"Levi will distract Papa during free time," he continued. "Hange and I will climb the wall and carry out the investigation. Miche and Moblit will be stationed at the window in the storage room. If Levi signals that Papa is coming, Miche will run to us and tell us to call off the investigation, and Moblit will distract him for as long as possible."

"Don't take any risks," Levi added. "Papa hasn't fully caught on yet, but he's not lacking suspicion."

"So we give up completely on the signal?" Moblit asked.

"For now," Erwin clarified. "We have until December 25th. Papa confirmed that to be the next shipment date, right?"

Levi nodded. "If we appear out of control, we'll be done for. He's still under the impression he can best us, but if he thinks we're too much trouble, we'll all be sent out quickly."

"Miche!" Petra yelled, Gunther and Henning close behind as the three five-year-olds ran up to them. "You said you'd come play when you did chores."

"We're almost done," he told them.

"We're going to hide in the house," Gunther said. "You and Moblit come find us after you count to twenty."

"I can count to twenty pretty fast," Moblit warned them. "You better find a hiding spot quick."

The three of them squealed and ran away.

"That's all, really," Erwin said. "If everyone knows their positions, there's nothing more to say."

"Yeah. Good luck."

Moblit and Miche waved as they retreated into the house.

"What happened last night?" Levi asked.

"We didn't get much that would help us in the escape," Erwin answered.

"Well, what did you get?"

"A lot, actually," Hange cut in before Erwin could dismiss him again.

"We should go inside, then," the blonde sighed.

Levi regarded them both for a moment before shrugging and leading the way to his dormitory. There, Erwin gave him the play-by-play of their conversation with Brother Reiner.

"So Brother knows we can break the trackers," Levi said with a clenched jaw.

"It's possible he's already searching for something that could break them to use as evidence," Erwin said. "How fast can you get all the parts and put something together with Hange?"

Levi sighed deeply before moving to his bedside drawer and pulling something out of it. As he faced Hange and Erwin, he put an object in front of his face and pushed a button on it with his finger. A bright light engulfed their vision, making them cringe back and close their eyes.

"Ow! What's that?" They yelped.

"A camera. I'll take it apart tonight. It's got the last part in it."

Hange finished rubbing their eyes and climbed over his bed to take the device from him, inspecting it. It looked extremely similar to the one they had seen in a book in the library just a few days ago, except that it was much smaller and without a stand, as if it was meant specifically for handheld use.

"This is so much heavier than it looks," they remarked.

"Get your filthy shoes off my bed, four-eyes." Levi tore the camera out of their hands.

"Oi!"

They tried to grab at Levi, forcing him into the corner of the room. He hid it behind his back as they glared at one another.

"This alliance is really quite fragile," Erwin mused, distracting them from their teasing. "If Brother Reiner finds this..."

"He won't," Levi said with confidence, and moved towards Eld's bed, pulling the drawers aside and prying a loose floorboard off from underneath it.

Hange peered over his shoulder and saw a variety of toys and devices that they recognised to have belonged to Levi over the years stowed under the floor. "Oh, so this is where you kept them."

"Brother Reiner will probably be sniffing about at lunch, when we're all busy in the dining hall. I'm gonna leave this open with a note that'll catch his interest. He'll spend free time at his room deciding what to do with it all, so you'll be free to go to the wall without his supervision as well."

"You aren't keeping the device in here, are you?" Erwin frowned.

"'Course not. Just the remains of the things I took parts from. I'll take apart the camera now. Go start preparing lunch."

Sure enough, a few minutes after Levi joined them in their lunch preparations, Brother Reiner passed the dining hall and took off upstairs in the direction of the dormitories.

Hange met Levi's eyes, and a smirk tugged at the corner of his lips. Told you, he seemed to say.

They stuck their tongue out of him, though they were glad that whatever bait he had set for Brother, it appeared to have worked.

Brother Reiner didn't even come to lunch. They hoped he'd remain occupied with the so-called evidence for long enough that it would bleed far into their free time, and thought nothing else of it.

Hange pelted into the forest the second they were let outside. Erwin was behind them, but they couldn't make themself slow their pace for him, far too excited for what was to come. They were planning to get the inspection over and done with as soon as possible.

When they started making lunch, Erwin had suggested the backup plan of carrying out their investigation regardless of if the signal had been called or not. Realistically, if Levi couldn't keep Papa away for long enough to do the inspection, he'd probably never be able to do so again, so this was their best chance at seeing what was beyond the wall. It wasn't worth giving up just to remain unsuspected of planning to escape, given that Papa already knew the three of them were involved, and Brother Reiner could sell Moblit and Miche out along with Levi's role at any given moment.

Besides, if Brother remained uninvolved as he claimed he would, then the five of them could take on Papa if it really came to it. Which it wouldn't.

Hange was so far ahead that they were already climbing into the tree with the rope hidden in it before Erwin even made it into the clearing. They snickered at him as he caught his breath.

"Nice of you to join me, slowpoke," they called down, and passed two strands of rope down for him to tie together.

They sat in the tree tying their own ends of rope. It would be a complicated setup, but across several branches, they'd have enough momentum to swing on top of the wall. Though it wasn't the safest of plans, they were confide-

"Hange," they heard Erwin say as footsteps approached them.

They looked down and saw him throwing his rope into the bush next to him, and then realised that he hadn't moved from where he stood a few moments ago. They jumped down from the tree without a second thought, and waited for the source of the sound to show themselves.

Papa emerged, compass in hand and a calm smile on his face.

Hange couldn't hide their surprise. It had been no more than ten minutes since free time had started. Had he known the whole time? And where was the signal - had Levi even tried to stop him in the first place? Papa wasn't even running. Miche could have made it in time.

What happened?

"Hey, Papa. What's up?" Hange smiled up at him.

"Ten years," Papa responded, and they knew it was over. "We've known each other so long, and now I can finally talk to you freely."

His voice was void of its usual lightheartedness. Hange could only blink at him, but then Papa chuckled.

"Calm down. There's just us here," he gestured around them. "You don't have to pretend either. What a relief, huh? Right now, it's just the caretaker and the Eldian children destined to be eaten." They took in a shuddering breath. "Don't get me wrong, though! You're still my children, and I love you all the same," he put a hand to his chest. "That means I don't want any unnecessary harm to come to you. So please, for all of our sakes, give up."

"...Give up what?" Erwin dared to ask.

"Resisting the inevitable. I don't wish for you to suffer. You've all lived happy lives here up until now. You've never experienced starvation, coldness, isolation, nor threat to your lives. You're very lucky."

"Lucky? Happy lives?" Hange spat out. "Would you consider what happened to Eren either of those things?"

"Death is quick, and he'll have felt nothing while unconscious. Until then, Eren lived a life full of fun and smiles, which is all we can ask for."

"Those smiles are lies!" They retorted. "I don't want to live an artificial life. I'll decide for myself whether the path I've chosen is the right one!"

"Hange," Erwin warned.

They took a deep breath.

"You can't escape, and it's too dangerous out there for you to survive," Papa continued. "It's full of pure titans, you know. Come back to the house, and live out the rest of your days. I want you to be the happiest you can be. You're good children, so I know you'll make the right decision for our family."

Hange shared a look with Erwin.

It was a horrific thing to hear that titans lay outside in the orphanage ready to eat them. But ever since the revelation of Levi's role, Erwin's plans had centred around the worst possible outcomes. This was but one of them.

"I understand, Papa," Erwin said. "We'll stop being good children, then."

There was no time to think - only do.

"Go!" Hange yelled, and tried to tackle Papa to the ground.

He was much too big for that, but he still stumbled a little from the force. The compass was balanced in his left hand, and Hange reached for it. If they could get a hold of it and throw it somewhere, Erwin would have time to grab the rope in the bush and hide it somewhere Papa wouldn't get it. Or if they could even manage to break it-

Papa flipped Hange onto the ground with his free hand, put his knee to their torso, and then twisted their calf so roughly it produced a loud crack. Their ears were ringing as their nerves began to recognise the searing pain, and they screamed. A flock of birds, startled by the sound, shot out of one of the nearby trees and soared past the wall.

"Shh, shh. It's alright, Hange," Papa sat them up and cradled them in his arms. "It doesn't hurt. I told you, sweetheart."

Hange couldn't help a few wheezing sobs, their teeth clenched beyond their own control. It doesn't hurt. It doesn't hurt. It's awful.

Then, as if he had been prepared to do so all along, Papa took out various medical supplies from his back pocket and began wrapping their leg into a splint. They didn't dare look at it, and groaned at the pain as he handled it.

"Thank you for being sensible, Erwin," he continued. Hange turned their head just enough to find Erwin frozen, bag in hand and wearing a horrified expression that didn't suit him. "It doesn't matter what you know at this point. All I need to do is hold you here until it's your turn to leave. That's our shared purpose."

"Why..." Erwin's whisper trailed into silence. Hange heard the beating of footsteps approaching them.

"Because of that, I'll protect you at any cost. If you don't listen, I have no choice bu-"

"Papa," Levi's voice rang out loud from their other side. "What did you do?" He trembled in a low tone.

"No worries. It was a clean break," Papa smiled.

Levi called him a word Hange hadn't heard before, and it made the man laugh. They turned to the elder boy. Miche and Moblit were stood behind him, breathing heavily with wide eyes.

"It'll heal in four to six weeks. Hopefully in time for your birthday, Levi. For now, I'll put this in a proper cast. You'll want to get used to crutches before tomorrow, Hange."

"Tomorrow?" They whispered, still half-focused on the pain radiating from their leg. It doesn't hurt.

"Yes. I got word from the higher-ups. Congratulations, Erwin. You'll be getting adopted."

It went very quiet. Then Papa scooped Hange up and began walking back towards the orphanage.

Don't leave me with him, they thought desperately, but none of their siblings followed.

Hange didn't look at the other children as Papa carried them back up the hill and into the orphanage, keeping their face pressed flush against his chest. Their leg didn't hurt anymore. Erwin was getting shipped out tomorrow. Erwin would be eaten tomorrow. Erwin would be dead tomorrow.

It wasn't fair. Two weeks ago they were carefree and innocent, and suddenly their whole world was crashing around them. Why? Whatever did they do to deserve this? They didn't understand.

"I'll prepare your medicine," Papa said, laying them down on the infirmary bed. "You'll need your leg to be reset into a proper cast."

Hange screwed their eyes shut so they didn't have to look at him up close. Still, they couldn't fight him when he handled their jaw and forced their mouth open to make them swallow the medicine manually. Instantly, they began to feel woozy and far away, aware that they were losing consciousness.

They couldn't help but draw the similarity with that of Eren's last moments, and hoped that they didn't wake up.

But of course, they weren't the one being eaten. It was Erwin. His right arm was the first of his limbs to be torn off, blood spurting from the wound. Unfortunately for him, he was awake, and screamed, his expression morphing into something even more grotesque than what Hange had seen earlier. Then his legs were crushed as the titan moved him further into their mouth, ragged fingernails piercing his torso. Hange watched him sputter before he ceased to move, and the titan's teeth finally closed around his head, detaching it from his body with a sickening crunch.

They got the sinking feeling that the titan's blonde beard was strikingly familiar before they woke up gasping.

"Hange." Erwin was holding one of their hands tight with both of his own. Two arms. It didn't reassure them, however, because it wasn't just an unthinkable dream. It was tomorrow's reality. "Don't worry. The only bits of rope he found were in the bush."

"Are you kidding me?" Hange yelled, their throat hoarse from how dry it was.

"Your leg will heal soon enough, and he still doesn't know our true plans. It'll succeed."

"You're going to be eaten!"

Erwin opened his eyes - they had been closed the whole time, Hange realised - to reveal dimmed irises, and his mouth wobbled. They knew then that he felt the same as them.

"I'll go and get you a glass of water," he said with a measured tone.

Hange tried to grab his arm but found they couldn't lean forward enough, half their body wrapped in thick blankets, and they could only watch as Erwin walked stiffly out of the infirmary. Hange let out a shaky breath and stared at the ceiling with swollen eyes. They must have been crying in their sleep.

"Stupid, pompous, egotistical, lying idiot," they muttered under their breath.

Someone snorted from underneath them, and they let out a high-pitched screech.

"Shut up," Levi's muffled voice told them. "Or Papa will come running."

"What are you doing?" They hissed, their heart hammering. "You're so awful. I nearly wet myself just now."

"Please don't."

Something heavy was pushed out from under their bed, but they couldn't lean over enough to see what it was. What they could determine was the sound of floorboards being slotted into place. When Levi emerged and stood up, his hair was stuck to his forehead and his clothes coated in dust.

"How's your leg?" He asked as he hoisted a box onto the bed.

"Fine. I had medicine. Who cares?"

"Me. Erwin, when he finally realises that your brain is useful to him. Now, help me put this thing together."

He tapped the box thrice before opening it, tilting it in their direction. At first glance, it looked like a bunch of junk and scrap, but they caught on quickly.

"Are these all the parts?" They asked.

"Yeah. And the notes, too." He pulled out a worn piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to them. "Dunno if you'll need all of it, but it has the materials and mechanisms for the tracker, and the stuff that should counteract it."

"You've done all of this?" Hange asked, wide-eyed.

They glanced over the notes. It was practically a guide for building each part of a device to break the tracker, only not laid out step-by-step, and listed various functions of what they assumed was not only for the tracking device itself, but everything collected in the box. Levi's handwriting varied enough over the notes that they could tell he'd written some of them a few years ago.

"Had plenty of time too," he said. "I'd help, but Papa's gonna be staring at that damn compass all night. Do you think you can make it by tomorrow?"

"With all this and a few tools, of course. Not like I'll be sleeping anyway."

"The tools," Levi sighed. "I forgot. I'll bring them back in a bit. You can give the device to Erwin early tomorrow, and he can use it to escape."

"Yeah," Hange smiled for the first time in hours. Of course they weren't gonna let Erwin get eaten. If he was going to get sent out tomorrow, he'd simply have to escape instead. "Hide the box back so Papa can't see it."

The boy did so, making sure Hange's covers definitely reached the floor on both sides so that it was obscured. Hange continued poring over the notes, tracing a finger over a diagram of the tracker and how the alarm became triggered.

"Ilse," Levi said quietly after a moment.

"Hm?" Hange murmured, and then realised. "Oh."

They thought they remembered the name, but they couldn't put a face to it. They supposed there was a reason for that, but still felt a bit guilty for not remembering all their siblings. It must have been a really long time ago. They figured they would remember if one of the infants or toddlers had gone unexpectedly in the last few years.

Still, they continued to stare at the diagram. Ilse was gone now, and there was nothing that could be done about that. Erwin, however, could still be saved with what was left of her.

"Hang-" The very boy startled as he opened the door.

"We're going to talk about this," Levi gave him no room for argument. "You're not dying. You're going to escape on your own tomorrow."

"I can't," Erwin smiled.

"Tough," Hange and Levi said in unison, and he sighed, closing the door behind him and passing Hange the glass of water.

They began downing it immediately. That medicine must have dried their throat out.

"To be more specific," Levi continued, "you're going to pretend you've escaped tomorrow during free time, and disable your tracker."

"We don't have anything to disable it with yet."

"We will by tomorrow," Hange assured him.

"You'll break it, and then hide in the forest until Hange's leg heals," the older boy explained. "We'll carry out the escape plan at the time we were going to originally. We can bring supplies so you don't starve or whatever."

"And if they think you've escaped, no one will look for you inside the grounds. You can investigate whenever, and we'll be able to meet up with you easily enough."

"Security will be sure to che-" Erwin tried to argue, but Levi cut him off.

"Security won't do jack because of how the house works."

"...What are you saying?"

"The house values both the physical and mental health of the children. Physical is important so that when children are eaten, there aren't any diseases or complications transferred. Mental issues can also come into that, but mostly, too much stress or trauma could affect the memory. Also, if the kids get the sense that the orphanage is unsafe or that we're trapped here, anyone who's having special dreams or however they realise they have memories that aren't their own is more likely to keep it to themselves. That makes their turnover inefficient. A lot of work goes into the perfect orphanage facade," Levi stressed. "Making obvious changes to the house grounds would freak the brats out. The most they can do is give us another caretaker because that's logical, and if they do that again, we can just deal with it when the time comes."

"And what if they restrict anything we could use as a rope?"

"Just - just build a ladder when you're in hiding or something!" Levi's frustrations were something that Hange sympathised with, but they were still too out of it to contribute much, no matter how annoying Erwin's excuses were getting.

"And if they install more advanced trackers?"

"We'll know where it is to cut it out, and again, it'll look weird to the other kids. There's no loophole to this, blondie! You don't need to die right now, so I don't know why you're being so stubborn about this. We can get you food, keep you hidden, and there won't be too much security to handle. And I still have more stuff to throw at Papa to ensure everyone escapes. Do you need a pros and cons table drawn out? You can live! You can live and esc-"

"I can't, Levi."

"Why?" Hange gave in to their irritation.

Erwin sighed, and stared at his palms. "If I'm not shipped out, Papa will send one of you instead. That's not an acceptable outcome," he said firmly. "Thank you for your concern, but I'm fine with going tomorrow. They might take my life, but the plan for everyone else to escape will remain, so I won't lose. Being sent out doesn't mean I don't succeed."

What a lie, Hange thought to themself. What was true, however, was that Papa would probably send another of the eldest children out if Erwin wasn't an option. Surely there was a way around that.

"Stop with your stupid ego complex!" Levi spat. "What did I waste all my years doing if you're just gonna cop out of it last-minute?"

"Sorry," Erwin murmured.

Finally, the two of them shut up and sat on the edge of the bed so Hange could think. It was already hard enough with the spaciness they were getting in their brain from the medication. The situation with their leg was truly a pain in th-

"Oh!" They raised their hand up as if in a group study lesson. "Levi, what if you broke your leg as well?"

"What?" Levi frowned at them.

"You said they don't want us having poor physical form. Maybe they'd want to avoid eating us if we had an issue like a broken bone? I don't think they'd ship me out like this, and if you broke your leg too, they won't ship you either. It'll hurt, but that's better than being eaten, right?"

Levi laughed harder than they'd ever heard before. He swung off the bed and turned to face them with wide eyes that shone with amusement.

"That's the best thing I've ever damn heard."

"You have to be sarcastic right now," Erwin's face was blank.

"Shut up, eyebrows. A broken bone is nothing. An arm would be less of a pain to deal with than a leg, though."

"Oh, yeah," Hange chuckled, a bit embarrassed that hadn't been their first thought. "Much easier."

"Just hold on before you do something foolish," Erwin looked back and forth between them. "You don't know that that'll work. Why would a broken bone specifically stop a titan power being inherited correctly?"

"It's called gambling, Erwin," Levi's voice shook with nerve, and the taller boy looked dumbfounded. "I hear you're quite familiar with it."

"If a broken bone isn't enough, we could just get really sick for a bit," Hange supplied. "Having both at once might be annoying, but you can handle that, right, shorty?"

"'Course, four-eyes."

"And if Papa doesn't want us in the same infirmary room, we can talk out our escape plan through string telephones."

"B-but-" Erwin stuttered.

"Whatever stupid thing you come up with, we'll find something else to counter it!" They yelled at him.

"You're both insane," he whispered.

"Death isn't a part of the plan. We're all meant to escape together. Anything's better than you dying."

Erwin had nothing to say to that, so they leaned over with great effort to grasp onto one of his shoulders.

"Say you'll escape with us, Erwin. No one has to die. You can live."

Erwin pushed them off lightly, but shuffled closer so that they wouldn't have to strain themself. It was too late, however; they'd already noticed the way his shoulders were shaking.

He put his head in his hands. "Alright," his voice broke.

They pulled him into a hug, which they stayed in for a short while. Hange even watched Levi slink forward and pat Erwin on the head. They smiled.

"Now," the oldest of them stood up. "Hange and I will work on the tracker tonight. Erwin, tomorrow you'll pretend to climb over the wall and escape. Who's got the binoculars?"

"They're in my cardigan," Erwin patted his left side.

"Good. You can carry out the inspection then, and make a plan from what you see."

"Best to do it before any security changes," he agreed.

"Moblit and Miche are already working on a new rope made out of spare sheets for that too. We all got caught, so it doesn't matter whether they're being secretive anymore."

"What even happened?" Hange asked. "Did Brother Reiner rat us out?"

Levi glanced away. "I don't think so. He's gone."

"Gone?"

"Papa got rid of him. Probably got him eaten." He tutted. "Heartless monster."

"Right..." Erwin murmured. "You said there'd be a way to disable the tracker tomorrow?"

"Yep!" Hange beamed. "Show him, shorty."

Levi pulled the box with the parts out from under the bed for him to inspect.

"None of these things are accessible from what's in the orphanage," Erwin frowned.

"They're from his toys," Hange grinned.

"All of them?"

"Six years' worth," Levi elaborated. "Some of them weren't toys, but things like the camera. The binoculars, though I didn't use any parts from that. But I knew it'd be necessary for inspecting beyond the wall."

Erwin was quiet for a moment. "You collected all of this from different things to build the tracker over such a long time that Papa wouldn't notice," he stated with wonder.

"Well, I had to once I figured out the secret. It was the only opportunity I was gonna get."

"Yes. I have a question about that, actually."

"What?"

"How did you even find out the secret in the first place? It's almost impossible for anyone to find out, unless you go to the gate like we did. And you coerced us into doing that. You've given us so much information, and I doubt Papa would have told you anything himself. But you managed to find out and understand so young, so... how?"

Hange was curious about that too, honestly, but hadn't been willing to push Levi on it when it first crossed their mind, in case it had been as traumatic as what they'd seen. Or worse. But they were trying especially hard not to think about that.

Levi sat down on the edge of their bed and glanced elsewhere. "I didn't exactly find out. I just knew."

"Uh, care to elaborate?" They asked him, his answer not easing their dread whatsoever.

He sighed. "Do you know what infantile amnesia is?"

"When children forget their memories from when they were a baby?" Hange recalled. It had actually been mentioned in a book they picked up a week ago, when they were trying to research memory in relation to the titan powers.

"Mm. How far back can you two remember?"

"Maybe since I was two or three," Erwin answered.

"That's really early," Hange commented. "Three's a stretch for me, but I do have a couple of memories from then. Everything else is just stuff I've been told and kind of remember."

"Maybe mine's anecdotal too," the younger boy murmured to himself.

"Yeah, it's like that for almost everyone," Levi continued. "But there's really, really rare instances that people don't get it."

Oh.

"So- you..." They started, but found they couldn't finish their thought.

"I remember it all," Levi continued. "My first memory was maybe when I was a fetus. I remember being inside a warm liquid without light, hearing a voice muffled from a distance. Probably my biological mother. Stuff like that. It's clear, but in fragments. Enough information that I could piece together a timeline, anyway. I remember the pain of having that tracker put in, and then a bunch of us were split into different groups. No one else came with me, and I was brought through a long, dark tunnel. But I'm pretty sure that's the gate. My sense of time might be distorted."

"You remember the entire year before you came here?" Hange asked breathlessly.

"Bits and pieces. I always thought about the stuff that stuck out. I guess it cemented those memories in my brain before I could forget them." The hairs on the back of their neck stiffened.

"So, directly outside the gate isn't just... an outside world," Erwin deduced.

"No. They have a sort of camp set up there. I would guess that a bit further out, there's a headquarters or something, where all the different orphanages are linked."

"You think they're all that close?"

"Shiganshina House is only a tunnel away from the place where all the infants are kept. They keep such a routine here that it would make sense for the structure of the other groups to be just as orderly, and identical. For all we know, they could even be on the other side of the wall. It would be a problem if the kids in different orphanages could hear each other, so there's the rule about not passing the fence, just so it keeps the illusion of being secluded and surrounded by a huge forest up."

"Fascinating. We'll have to redo our map."

"Levi," Hange finally brought themself to speak again. "If... if you have abnormal memories like that-"

"I'm not a titan."

They sighed with relief, their terror subsiding.

"I don't have any memories that contradict the life I've lived or the places I could have possibly been. Everything I remember is mine, as Levi. Nothing more. Trust me, if I was, I would have killed all the bastards involved in this by now."

"Is headquarters where you learned words like that? You've said that twice today." They recognised it as what he'd said to Papa at the wall.

"Probably," he smirked.

They tried to mirror his expression, but now that the fear that he was exactly what the people outside were looking for had been dismissed, they were distracted by the fact that Levi hadn't just been suffering with his knowledge since they went to the gate as children. It had been his whole life. Before he was even born, in fact. It was... always.

"What about your deal with Papa?" Erwin asked. "When did that happen?"

"On my fifth birthday." Almost seven years. "By then, I'd done the tests long enough to start seeing patterns in everything, including how often kids were going in and out of the orphanage. It made me understand that the things I was thinking about weren't just weird repetitive dreams, but really happened. I didn't sleep much as an infant, so Papa took me into his office sometimes and spoke his thoughts out loud. I got the gist of the titan aspect of it from that. When I confronted him about it all, he was pretty shocked. But I made my deal with him there. He could ship me out early or use me to his advantage. I had decent scores, so it was in his best interests to keep me alive for longer, and that was that."

"When we've talked about escaping this place, you've referred to it as walls before, not just the singular wall that we know of," Erwin mentioned. "I didn't think anything of it until Brother said the same thing. How sure are you that the other facilities are next to us?"

"Not at all. I would have told you all this ages ago if you met my criteria."

"What do you mean?" Hange frowned.

"Regardless, don't soil yourself over trying to stay low tonight," Levi ignored them. "What's important right now is that you aren't traceable tomorrow, and that Hange's leg heals before we conduct the real escape."

"Right," Erwin nodded stiffly.

"Erwin," Hange spoke in a soft tone, grasping his hand again. "We won't let you die. We're all going to escape together, just like we agreed, alright?"

He locked eyes with them and smiled, nodding. Then the dinner bell rang, and Levi hurriedly drummed his fingers against the box before concealing it under the bed again.

"I'll be back when Papa comes to take your dinner plate away. You'll be on your own overnight, but we can both work on it for at least the first couple of hours. Erwin, could we take your smoke gun for spare parts just in case?"

"Sure."

The stress of the situation had significantly decreased in just half an hour of conversation. It was motivating enough for Hange to get through Papa showering them and dressing them in pyjamas that accommodated for the huge cast he'd put on their leg, as well as when he'd come in and out to give and take away their food. They didn't say a word to him the entire time, their brain already constructing a rough draft of the tracker-breaking device based on what they'd read so far, and turned away from him to feign sleep when they were done eating.

They sat up when three soft knocks rapped against the door. Levi waded in with another box and set it to the floor before dragging the table that was positioned over their bed when they were eating back in front of them.

"I have an hour before I shower. Papa will probably come back after that, so I'll have to move the table back when I go. You're on your own from then."

"That's fine. I can move enough to put the box back under the bed if he comes."

"Good. Let's get to work, then."

13th November, 04:44

By the next morning, the device had been constructed as planned. Papa had taken the smoke gun away before Levi could get his hands on it, but his research hadn't accounted for it in the first place, so it was no big loss. Hange had made their initial sketch, reviewed it with Levi to ensure they hadn't made any silly mistakes, and then took their time once he was gone to build it without a single detail unaccounted for.

Early in the hours of the morning, Levi came by again to check it over and take any evidence out of their room before Papa helped them get dressed. By his calm demeanour during the morning test, Hange assumed he'd gotten it to Erwin without issue. Additionally, Moblit slipped into their room whilst they were eating breakfast and told them that he'd successfully made a new rope, and had given it to Miche last night so he could pass it onto Erwin. Everything was in place, though it didn't stop them from being nervous.

"He'll be fine," Levi said during free time.

"I know," they murmured.

Erwin didn't make mistakes, after all, so it was highly unlikely that everything wouldn't go to plan.

The two of them spent the next few hours sat under Levi's tree watching the other children. Hange's cast and crutches were something of a novelty, as was usual when someone broke a bone. Every so often, a few of the younger kids would toddle over with coloured pencils and ask to sign their cast, and Levi would brace his arm over them all so that no one pressed down too hard on Hange's leg whilst trying to write on it. He was also guarding their crutches after Oluo and Floch tried to swordfight with them.

All the while, Hange distracted themself by talking about anything and everything that wasn't to do with the escape, while Levi pretended to ignore them, but occasionally chipped in with his own comments to spur them on further. It was a routine they seemed to have fallen out of the past couple of weeks, and one they'd missed.

As much as they felt nostalgic for the days when they did nothing but mess around, they understood that the escape was far too important to slack on just because they wanted to play with their siblings every once in a while. But there would be plenty of time for that once they escaped. They could wait just a little bit longer.

Just a bit longer, and Erwin would be free.

After what felt like forever, the bell rang, and Levi helped Hange up off the ground. They dusted off their skirt - which they'd be stuck with for as long as they wore the thick cast on their leg - and held their crutches tight as the children gathered up. Papa surveyed everyone, and they could see him mentally counting and trying to work out who was missing.

"Where's Erwin?" He asked within earshot, and ended up turning towards the two of them.

Hange couldn't help the manic grin that spread across their face.

Papa stared at them for a few seconds before his eyes widened, and he fumbled with his compass as he took it out of his pocket. The moment he spent doing nothing but staring at it was exhilarating. But the feeling was instantly killed when they saw Papa smile and stand up straight, looking down the hill expectantly.

"Ah, there you are."

Slowly but surely, Erwin trudged his way to the tree. Most of the children cheered at his return. Hange couldn't move.

"Why?" They asked with a faint voice.

No one answered.

They returned to the infirmary alone. A few minutes later, Levi invited himself in. He sat down at the edge of their bed and put his head in his hands. They said nothing to one another.

Hange didn't understand, not one bit. There was nothing wrong with the plan they'd come up with. They'd - they'd spent all night working on that stupid device that Levi had spent six years working on the plans for, and Erwin hadn't even used it. He still showed up on Papa's tracker. Did it not work? But Erwin wouldn't have known whether it did or didn't, and he'd come back anyway. Why?

Erwin came in dressed in his leaving attire, and Hange didn't even blink when Levi shot up from the bed and smacked him across the face.

"Why the hell are you here?" He hissed at the taller boy. "What possessed you to come back? What was the damn point? Get out of this house right now and hide!"

"I won't be doing that," Erwin said calmly.

"Why?" Levi screamed.

"It was a cliff."

"What - what was a cliff?"

"Both of you listen to me," he instructed.

Hange looked at him, their head blank save for the knowledge that Erwin's going to die. It was true this time, and certain.

"Past the wall is a cliff. It's dozens of metres wide, so no one could possibly jump it. They never needed to worry about security with a cliff like that. We're completely secluded from the outside world on our own little island."

"So we can't escape past the wall?" Hange whispered.

"Well..." he hesitated. "Not easily. Not without preparation." He sat down on Hange's bed and brought out his notepad, beginning to sketch. "I tried going to the edge of the wall, and it split off into two. One continued sectioning off the orphanage, and the other continued along the cliff, and both bend inwards when you look far enough. There seems to be forest on both sides, but within the inner curve of the wall - the side without the cliff - there's smoke and signs of large civilisation in the distance. I think that might be where all the Marley people are. We're on the outside of this circle, and if we trust Brother Reiner's experience, there's probably four orphanages like this at equidistant points around Marley's civilisation."

Erwin drew a large circle with four semicircles connected to the outside, and labelled the one on the bottom Shiganshina. Then he drew a rougher line surrounding the outside of the drawing to represent the cliff, and scribbled around the outside of it all to indicate the forest.

"I didn't have time to get all the way to the side with the gate, but I'm sure that's the only official way in and out. I couldn't see another orphanage from where I was." He marked a line in the centre of the bottom of the Shiganshina semicircle. "There should be a bridge here, if they have any connections to land beyond their civilisation. Plus, the people we saw were on the outside of the gate too, so there must be an underground tunnel to help them get back into the centre without us ever seeing them."

There was a soft knock at the door, and they all swivelled as Erwin shoved the notepad under where he sat. The knob turned, and Armin and Mikasa's faces peeked through the doorway.

"Erwin, Papa's calling!" Armin told him.

"Tell him I'll be out in a minute."

"Okay!" The door closed.

"Right. I'll be going, then."

"H-hold on a second!" Hange grabbed Erwin's arm as he stood up.

"Oh, yes. Take this back. I didn't use it." He took out the tracker-disabling device and placed it in their hand as he moved his arm out of their grasp.

They stared at it in horror. "Why?"

"You were gonna come back from the start, you bastard," Levi shook Erwin's shoulders roughly enough that they both swayed with the motion. "Didn't you say we'd all come out alive together? Who cares about the cliff right now? You could have told us this while you were in hiding. There's no reason why you can't use it now and make a run for it. You... you promised-"

"I know," Erwin cut him off with a smile. "I lied."

Hange hiccuped, and Levi collapsed back onto the bed, almost landing straight on their cast.

"Sorry, but I cannot afford to make any more mistakes. I need to make sure everyone survives, and everyone escaping would be much harder if I was the first to successfully run away. That's not a risk I'm taking. My decision won't change no matter what you say, and I won't regret that. I've done what I can. The rest will be up to you two."

They couldn't look at him anymore, and instead stared at the dull floorboards in the hope that when they lifted their head, they'd be completely removed from this awful nightmare. They heard Erwin straightening his uniform and picking up his briefcase.

"Erwin, plea-" they started.

Erwin lunged in the centre of themself and Levi, pulling an arm around each of them to engulf them in a hug.

"Thank you for everything," his voice wobbled. "I had a great life. It was fun. I was happy. I love you both."

"You're so stupid," Levi's breath hitched.

"Erwin," Hange croaked, gripping the back of his blazer like a vice. "You can change your mind still. Run away. Live."

"I won't. Goodbye."

He pried their fingers off and turned around swiftly, closing the infirmary door behind him as he walked away. Hange grabbed instead for Levi, feeling like an abandoned toddler, and he let himself be pulled into their shoulder as they wept into his hair. The boy didn't make a sound, but they could feel his arms shaking, and their collar slowly becoming damp.

Erwin's going to be eaten.

"What do we do?" They asked in a broken voice.

"We can't stop him," Levi spoke with a tremor. "He's made his decision."

"But if we don't do anything he-"

"I know, Hange. He doesn't wanna die, and he's probably scared out of his mind," he whispered. "But if we make a mistake and our plans get properly found out he really will die for a lost cause. If you want his death to have meaning, there's not a damn thing we can do anymore."

"...So that's it?"

"What do you want me to do? If I kill Papa, they'll just send another caretaker out with a bunch more security, and then no one will be able to escape. It's pointless."

They couldn't believe it. This couldn't be the truth. It was awful. It was just as awful as it had been the night Eren left. It didn't get better. If anything, it got worse with every day. There was nothing left to do to save Erwin. All they could do was say goodbye.

"Are you coming?" Hange asked, slowly hobbling their way to the door.

"No."

They paused for a moment to let him change his mind, but when he didn't, they continued on their way to the dining hall.

Most of the other children were already gathered with Papa to see Erwin off. Their chest was tight, and they couldn't stop their eyes from glistening. They kept their head down as not to raise suspicion amongst the younger kids, though it was more of a subconscious decision considering everything else at the forefront of their mind.

Erwin's going to be eaten.

"Thanks, Papa," the boy himself stood in the entranceway. Hange wasn't quite focused, but could hear one of the children weeping as they ran up to him. "Don't cry, Mikasa. How about you send me off with a smile, okay?"

"Okay," the four-year-old warbled.

"Armin, can you watch over Hange in my place while their leg heals?"

"Y-yeah..." Armin walked into his arms for a goodbye hug.

"Hange, where's Levi?" Papa asked.

"The infirmary. He doesn't want to see Erwin off," they said flatly, staring at the floorboards.

"Miche and Moblit," Erwin said after a moment's silence. "Take care of Hange and Levi for me."

"Sure," Moblit mumbled. Hange didn't hear a thing from the other boy.

"Hange, you're in my position now. Take care of the others, please."

Hange knew that Levi was right. The worst thing to do would be to let all of Erwin's efforts go to waste just in an attempt to save him from this fate. But even so, sending him off to get eaten without even trying to fight it wasn't something they could comprehend being the right thing to do. They'd promised - they'd been saying this whole time - no more.

The chatter was coming to a halt. Everyone had finished saying their goodbyes. Hange didn't want to.

But they weren't going to hide away whilst he left. They were going to do something about it.

"Erwin!" They launched themself at him using the momentum of their crutches in order to tackle him to the floor. "I'll distract Papa," they whispered into his ear while they fell, and they put their hand holding the tracker-breaking device to his ear and braced themself to stomp their broken leg onto the floorboards. "Run aw-"

Erwin flipped them over before they could put anything else into motion. Their back smacked the floor, and they laid there in shock for a few seconds, reminded of how Papa had done the same to them just the day before. The difference was that the eleven-year-old had never, ever demonstrated the strength nor reflexes to do what he'd just done before now.

"You fool!" He scolded. "This is too reckless, even for you! This isn't what you should be trying to achieve right now."

"Shut up! I won't let you just go!" They screamed back at him as he swiped the device from their hand.

"Are they fighting?" Someone from the crowd of children asked.

"Listen to me," Erwin gritted his teeth and sat them up. "What you're doing is the opposite of what I want. Can't you just do as you're told for once in your life?"

"No! This is the one instruction from you I won't ever consider! I know for a fact you don't want this for yourself!"

Erwin's stern expression remained a moment longer before he sighed, and - to their utter surprise - ended up chuckling.

"You're insane. Insane but honest. Both of you care too much, but it's what makes you so great."

He reached a hand out to ruffle Hange's hair, but Papa placed the boy's hat, previously knocked off in their scuffle, back onto his head, and Erwin pulled his arm back before it made contact.

"Time to go, Erwin," Papa told him.

"Okay, Papa."

Hange didn't understand how he still had the ability to smile moments before marching to his death.

"W-Wait!" They cried out as Erwin stood up and collected his suitcase.

"Calm down, Hange. I know you're upset he's leaving, but you're losing your temper again," Papa gathered Hange in his arms and rested his lips on their ear. "If you act up again, I'll kill you. No more chances," he whispered.

They gasped.

"Stop struggling. You can't do anything. Just give up."

"Papa?" Erwin asked. "Is it alright if I say one last goodbye to Hange at the door?"

Papa paused, then smiled up at the boy. "Of course. Come along, then."

He placed Hange upright on their crutches, and they followed him and Erwin down the hallway. Erwin briefly paused at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at the landing and nodding before continuing on his way. When Hange caught up to the same spot, Levi was already gone.

"Hange." Erwin grasped their hand at the door. The tracker-breaking device was held between their palms. "Take care."

"Mhm." They found they couldn't speak. Couldn't say goodbye. Couldn't do it.

"I'm sorry for tricking you."

They nodded.

"Don't get injured again, please."

They shrugged.

"And don't be reckless."

They said nothing.

"Eat properly so you can heal, alright?"

They closed their eyes.

"I'll leave the rest to you." He let go of their hand, and they wrapped their fingers tightly around the device as their arm swung limp against their side.

"Mhm," they tried to hum.

Erwin grasped the back of their head and pulled them into a hug, and they inhaled shakily against his neck. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair.

Then he let go, and he walked out the door, and so did Papa, and then it locked behind them. Hange fell against it, listening to the trailing footsteps until they could hear them no more.

Erwin's going to be eaten.

That would be the last time they saw him.

16th November, 13:37

Hange kept to themself for the next few days. They attempted to put on a smile every so often for the younger ones, but in the end, this particular grief was one everyone understood, even at a surface level. They had sent a friend off, never to be seen again, and now Hange was all alone.

"We're going to the library," Moblit announced one afternoon, Miche looming behind him.

Hange had heard from Furlan that the library was where Levi was hiding away at. They hadn't seen him anywhere other than the morning tests, which were mandatory for anyone over four and not confined to the infirmary. Full marks, as usual. It didn't matter anymore, but this was the only thing they were good at.

They hobbled with their crutches into the library, and saw the shorter boy sitting at one of the study tables, staring blankly at the floor.

"What?" He said as all three of them stood around him in silence. His voice was hoarse. Hange didn't think they'd ever gone this long without speaking to one another before.

"Well, we... we have to decide what to do now, right?" Moblit hesitated. "From now on-"

"Forget it," he muttered. "I don't care anymore. It's better to die here."

"What's wrong with you?" Miche snapped.

"It's impossible. We're surrounded by a cliff, and the only bridge going out of here leads us straight to the enemy. I'm tired of trying to fight a losing battle."

Coward, Hange thought.

"What about this?" They asked, holding the tracker-breaking device out.

"What about it?" Levi said without even lifting his head up to look at it. "If you still wanna leave, go ahead. I'm done." Then, "Sorry."

They huffed, turning on their good heel and marching out of the library, filled with a rare resentment for him.

Of course he had given up. He failed once, and now he would never bother to try again. Pathetic.

They spent most of their evening crying into the pillow of the infirmary bed, until a hand on their shoulder made them jerk upright.

"I didn't mean to scare you," Papa murmured.

Hange wiped their face clean and glared daggers at him.

"I thought you might want your hair cut."

They did. And they couldn't ask their loser of an older brother to do it.

Begrudgingly, they followed Papa into the bathroom and sat down in deafening silence, broken only by the snipping of the scissors and the man's occasional queries of when to stop. Hange gave him nothing, and he eventually made his own judgement and stopped somewhere around chin-length. They watched as he swept up and discarded their hair into the bin, somehow more angry at the fact that they felt better now.

Papa put the scissors away and handed them their crutches, but did not move from the doorway, and continued to look at them in the mirror. They turned away from him.

"You should give up, Hange. For your own sake. You're only suffering because you're trying to resist the way things are. You know you can't escape, and neither of your friends can help you. The easiest way to stop the pain is to do nothing. And... if you're interested, there are openings for becoming a war candidate that I can recommend you for. Until you get called in, you can live as a parent or sibling, just like Brother Reiner and I."

Hange was furious. The nerve of him to say such a thing, even after discarding Brother Reiner and probably getting him killed like he meant nothing! They hadn't liked him, but he had been helpful, and he didn't deserve to die. No one deserved to die. They could never participate in a system like this.

"Why on ear-"

"Who would roll over like that? Is that what you're wondering?"

Something in Papa's tone made them turn to face him. He was staring at them intently, the way he did sometimes when a child forgot their manners, and he wanted them to remember their please and thank yous.

"But if you can't escape, what can you do? There's no loophole. You get killed off as a child, or, if you're smart and athletic enough, you have the opportunity to live to adulthood. Then, if you become a parent, you can give those children destined to die happiness for all of their limited days. Think about it." Give up, he meant.

They understood. If Brother Reiner had been raised in an orphanage just like them, there was the high possibility that Papa had been the same. He had lived ignorantly until twelve, and then he had been told the truth, and he had chosen to live on by serving Marley and becoming a parent. The only other option he had been given was to die, so he'd taken the former, and given up on being free.

Levi had fought silently, but he'd given up too now that Erwin was dead. Dead.

Giving up, though, didn't mean they wouldn't suffer. Both choices were awful. Why should they pick between the two options given to them at the gate? Couldn't they make their own? No matter how difficult it was - and how difficult it had been so far - it surely couldn't result in a worse outcome than the way things already were.

"I will never do such a thing," they found themself saying.

Papa's expression in the mirror quickly morphed into one of apathy, and he turned to leave. "Well, I tried my best. Fine, then. You can suffer agonising pain while you await death. You can't escape, and you can't do anything to resolve this situation outside of what I have offered you. Your choice."

With that, they were left to stare at their own reflection.

The last few days had been agonising. They'd sat under Levi's tree, having no heart to play with the other children knowing that they didn't yet have a concrete plan on how to save them, and so they'd simply watched them. Sometimes Moblit, or Furlan, or even Armin and Mikasa would trail over and sit with them in an attempt at comfort and solidarity, but Hange didn't have much to say to any of them, especially with Papa watching them from a distance.

There wasn't much they could do by themself, besides mope. But all they had for company at the moment was their anger. They'd been taught to tame it from a young age, as they were prone to tantrums and emotional outbursts, and to focus their energy into something else. Like fixing the situation that made them lose their cool to begin with.

Though it was easier said than done, Hange was defiant to their core, and nothing if not determined to find the solution they knew was lurking out there somewhere.

Maybe it would be the hill they died on, but they would reject Papa's offer and claims that these were only two options. Just because everyone else had given up didn't mean they were right to do so. Hange wouldn't. Erwin didn't die for nothing. Hange would prove them all wrong.

They stood up, leaning on their crutches, and got to work.

24th December, 23:43

As the clocks neared midnight on Christmas Eve, Hange ambled down one of the corridors of Shiganshina House before hearing something coming from the dining hall. They approached as quietly as they could on their crutches, and poked their head in to find the silhouette of someone humming to themselves whilst reading a book.

"Levi," they guessed.

Closing the door, they made their way towards him. The moonlight gave them enough vision to reach him without tripping over any of the tables or chairs, and when he lifted his head up, they could see him much more clearly. Like themself, his hair was nearly at his shoulders. Despite looking tired as ever, his eyes were rather clear in the light.

"What are you doing up so late?" They asked him.

He averted his gaze. "Making the most of my last night."

"...It's your birthday tomorrow."

"Yeah. Then I'll be gone."

It was silent for a moment. Hange glanced at a large crate on the table, covered by a cloth, just behind where Levi was sitting. When they looked at him again, he was already studying their face.

"Oi, Hange." He snapped the book shut and met their eyes with a piercing gaze. "Have you given up yet?"

Hange smiled. "I'm not very good at doing what I'm told."

"Funny," Levi smirked, and tossed the book onto the table. "Neither am I."

Hange had believed so, after thinking on it for a while, but it was still relieving to hear. In fact, Levi had probably been waiting for Hange tonight. Conveniently, they'd been looking for him, too.

"Let's run away, Levi. That's what I want to discuss."

"Figures. I've heard you yap about just about everything in the world over the years. Not many topics left. Has Papa been watching you like a dog too?"

"Yeah. I didn't want him to find out my true intentions, so I couldn't come and find you in broad daylight. He's really cautious. I think he only ever stopped watching me to check on you. But that means he wasn't paying attention to anyone else."

Levi raised an eyebrow. "Moblit and Miche?"

"Yeah. I suppose he thought once he got rid of Erwin, he'd only need to watch one of us at a time to know if we were still discussing escaping, and no one else was enough of a threat. So I left all the practical work to them."

"How far along are your preparations?"

"We're completely ready. Medical supplies, food and winter clothing are all prepared. We organised most of it whilst Papa was out the other day getting our presents. We can leave whenever we choose to."

"Not bad," Levi hummed. "What are you gonna do, then?"

"The plan's for us to leave tomorrow afternoon, before you get shipped out."

"It's reckless to do it during the day. Papa will already know what the strategy is, based on the tag games and the day you and Erwin tried to survey beyond the wall. It would be better if you did it in the night and used the dark as cover." He pulled out a chair beside him. "Sit."

Hange did, and registered that they hadn't been so near to him in over a month. Even at meals, they tended to avoid looking at one another. Papa didn't put them on the same duties anymore, not wanting them to conspire together. Hange thought he needn't have bothered - Levi didn't have any intentions of communicating with them before tonight regardless.

"There's two problems," Levi sat backwards on his chair, arms crossed over the top of the backrest, facing them. "Papa's always watching us and keeps a baby brat in his arms at all times. At night, the infants are all in the room attached to his. To escape with everyone, Papa would have to be so distracted and thrown off that he won't have his hands on any of them."

Hange nodded. Levi pulled a piece of paper out of his shirt pocket, revealing his own sketch of the orphanage's grounds.

"Then, past the walls is a cliff," he held the drawing out to them. "You can't climb down from anywhere, so the only way out would be the bridge. They'll already have security, and when it's communicated that there's a breakout, a bunch more are gonna gather there. You won't get through them safely, and anyone under the age of five doesn't stand a chance. So, how are you gonna deal with that?"

They stared at one another for a moment, the only sound being the ticking of a grandfather clock.

"How do you think I should deal with it?" They asked when he started to fidget impatiently.

"I reckon this is our best shot." He pulled out a metal can from under the covered crate and held it up in the moonlight. "At night, we'll set the house on fire."

"What?" They got the feeling that there was nothing else in that crate except for more cans of oil to match the one Levi brandished in his hand. An image of a house fire spreading too quickly to manage flashed through their mind. "Levi, where did you get those?"

"Six years of preparations," he answered matter-of-factly. "Papa will be distracted putting it out, and everyone will be evacuated outside. If we stuff up the lock to his secret room, he won't be able to contact anyone, so they won't know what's happening unless his heart stops, which I don't imagine is in his backup plans."

"We can't kill him," Hange stated, just so they were clear.

"We could."

"Levi!"

"But it would just notify his higher-ups, and they'd come down on us. If you hate the idea of a house fire, we can knock him unconscious and tie him up under the floorboards or something."

"Absolutely not! Do you want to traumatise the toddlers?" They hissed.

Levi rolled his eyes. "Then the fire is your best option. If Papa is busy and can't access his contact point, then there won't be any extra security at the bridge. If there is, it'd probably be few enough that you could take care of them without much trouble. And if what I have in the crates isn't enough to keep the fire going through the night, there's ten burn bottles I hid in the forest just after the fence."

"Sorry, you made explosives?" They exclaimed. They were shocked that he'd actually sourced the materials needed and gone through with making them without testing their effectiveness. "What on earth have you been doing for the last month?"

"Nothing. This is six years of preparations," he repeated. "If the fire's big enough, you should throw them over the inside wall if you have time. We're closer to that side than the gate, if you plan to climb up where the rope's been stashed since last month. They probably have an underground tunnel close by or hidden in the trees, so any security trying to get to the outer gate would be distracted. Erwin said the civilisation is far away from the wall, so it's not like anyone would die from it."

"There could be security guarding the entrance of the tunnel on the inner wall."

"They're tiny burn bottles, four-eyes. The only way you could fatally injure someone with them is if you were specifically aiming at them. You'd be aiming at the tops of the trees."

"Still..."

Hange knew it was a matter of life and death. They couldn't afford to be nice to those who wouldn't grant them the same courtesy. But Levi was making a lot of assumptions about the fires being prioritised over stopping the children from escaping.

"So," he stood up and leaned over them. "The escape should be tonight, not tomorrow. Is that alright with you?"

They frowned, trying to think over their next line of questioning.

"This place is furthest away from the dorms, too, so it won't spread too soon for the kids to get out. Plus, they've been trained how to run through the It formations, so everyone can evacuate quickly. Unless... your leg isn-"

"It's fine!" They stood up abruptly, slamming both feet into the floor.

Their cast had been taken off and replaced with wrapped supports just a few days ago, but they had been careful in their recovery and played up the severity of the pain so Papa didn't think they'd be able to move around. They wouldn't push it too hard, and still walked with the crutches, but they were fairly sure it was fully healed at this point.

"Then we're agreed." Levi took the cloth off the crate and began pouring the oil up and down the tables of the dining hall.

Hange squinted at the clock. Five minutes to midnight. Their heart rate began to pick up. "Are we?"

"What?" He stopped briefly, but then carried on with his task. "Well, I'm still against the idea of taking everyone, to be honest. The cliff is dangerous for anyone without complete control of their balance, and there's the task of getting up on the wall, too. If you insist on escaping with others, it should only be Moblit and Miche, since they helped. At least leave the babies. They'll live longer in here than out there." Hange sighed. "But you won't listen, and I can't stop you without snitching. It's better than you rotting in here until you get eaten, so I'm not gonna interfere anymore."

They watched him empty his second can onto the ground, unable to look away. It was only when it clattered against the floorboards that they realised he had just been standing there in silence along with them.

"Oi. If you have nothing else to say, then why are you still here? Go tell the other two."

"You... you want me to throw the burn bottles over the wall, right?"

"Yeah. Could be Miche, if you're busy leading the operations, bu-" he cut himself off, and his posture slackened.

They couldn't ask the question that they knew they needed to. They opted to beat around the bush instead. "What if Papa doesn't care about the building, and prioritises watching us instead?"

"Yeah. That's a possibility. Good you figured it out quick." They glared at him. "Starting a fire might not be enough. If we don't stop Papa, then no one can escape." He grabbed another can from the crate and turned to face them. "Simple fix. I can just do this."

Then Levi held the can just above his head and proceeded to pour its contents over himself.

"Levi?" Hange whispered after a moment, when their heart had started beating once again, faster than ever.

The air around them somehow felt thicker. Worst of all, they couldn't see most of Levi's expression, since his hair had grown long enough to cover most of his face as he tipped his head forward to let the rivulets of oil drip onto the floor.

Just his smile.

"What a wildcard," he wheezed, or laughed, or sobbed. "A perfect scorer going up in flames the night of their shipment. He'll lose his mind trying to save me."

The can dropped to the floor with a clatter as he clenched his fists, shaking.

"I've been waiting to do this for so many years. To him, and all the bastards out there who are waiting to see what I'm made of on the inside. They've wanted to know for so long if the runt with the abnormal memory wields a titan power. Twelve years of my life, and I can take all their efforts away from them in seconds."

"Levi, you can't be serious," they pleaded.

"Deadly," he grinned with teeth, and they couldn't help but whimper then. "You know, I've always found studying so boring. But I had to get my scores up, so I worked my backside off. Paid off, didn't it?"

Erwin hadn't been the same after the day he found Levi to be the traitor. At least, Hange thought so. He'd been a bit more unsure in the way he went about directing the escape.

They'd asked him why during a private conversation. To them, although they knew Levi was a spy, it hadn't made much of a difference regarding how they interacted with him, and rather gave them a better understanding of some of his mannerisms that they'd never quite gotten to grips with.

"He just wasn't himself," Erwin had admitted. "Or maybe he was, and I just didn't know him to begin with."

Now, Hange understood. The difference in what they once knew and what was before them was staggering.

They couldn't believe Levi was still smiling like that - or even at all. A significant chunk of their memory of their brother was him sitting under his tree with a book, or in the library, studying. That he didn't even like doing it... it was the second time, throughout all of this, that Hange truly felt they had been lied to their entire life. He didn't even look like himself right now either, with his long, knotted hair and manic expression.

"Honestly, Papa should've just sent me off while he had the chance," he continued, huffing a laugh out. "Why'd he think I'd ever cooperate to improve his reputation when he's selling us out like livestock? Who gives a toss about the titans or their stupid powers? I won't be eaten, and I won't serve my part in this massacre they call a war. None of it matters a damn bit. I'm a human being, and I'll choose how I die! Serves them right!" He shouted.

"Levi..."

They hoped if they kept saying his name, he'd come back. He was so orderly, so persistent in his everyday mannerisms, that anything out of the ordinary for him was shocking to a fearful extent. And this? This was as if he'd been possessed by a demon, distorting his character as far from his true self as possible.

"It's better this way, anyway," his shoulders slumped, and his face grew slack and downcast once more. "I've watched my family die all these years, and couldn't do a thing to stop it. They were all good brats, and I used their lives to buy time for my own selfish reasons."

"Levi, wai-" they reached out to grasp his shoulders, but he grabbed one of their crutches resting against the chair and pushed them backwards with the flat of it, forcing distance between them. They almost stumbled over in surprise.

"Don't move. You've only got this chance, four-eyes. Make sure it succeeds, so that me and Erwin don't die in vain. Oh," he turned back to the table and grabbed the book he'd been reading. "Here. It developed."

They took the book from him numbly, turning to where a makeshift bookmark stuck out of the top of it. Their breath hitched as they realised it was the photograph he'd taken of Erwin and themself the day before Erwin left. It was the first time they'd seen such a detailed visual of his face in so long, and their eyes glossed over. They missed him so very much.

They could have looked at that photo forever, but instead the midnight bell tolled, and their head snapped back up to look at Levi as they heard a match being struck. They dropped the book.

"I'm now twelve years old. As cursed an existence it was, I'm glad to have met everyone. I even got to be born and raised at the same time as a lunatic like you. Aren't I lucky?" He smiled.

The flicker of the flame illuminated his face better than the moonlight, and Hange almost wished that it didn't. Because he didn't look crazy anymore. He looked truly happy. At peace, drenched head to toe in flammable oil, and standing in a massive puddle of it, with a tiny stick of fire pinched between his fingers.

"No, just - just slow down!" They begged him frantically.

"Thanks for everything. Bye, Hange."

"Wait!"

But Levi, Hange remembered, couldn't be made to wait for anyone. He dropped the match to the floor.

25th December, 00:09

In the earliest hour of Christmas Day, Hange screamed and howled Levi's name, knees on the dining hall floor as the fire roared around them. The tears streaming down their face dried within seconds from the intense heat.

"Hange?" The door slammed open and Papa's footsteps were loud behind them.

Hange turned to see a look of utter shock on his face. "Papa! Levi... Levi's - he's in there!" They cried, and pointed to the heart of the flames in front of them.

Their head dropped to their knees again, but they could hear him opening up the compass and stepping further into the room.

"He... he can't have..."

If the situation were less dire, they might have told him that they thought the same thing, initially. But it wasn't, and instead they sobbed into the fabric of their trousers. They heard his footsteps retreating again.

"Papa? What's happening?" Moblit's voice called from the other end of the hallway.

"Fire! Evacuate everyone to the grounds immediately, and get the infants out of my room!" Papa barked, then ran off in a different direction.

Soon, Hange couldn't hear anything but the sizzling and crackling of the ever-growing fire. The air was getting thicker and drier, and they were taking in shuddering breaths. Still, they could not get up.

"Please," they whispered to themself.

"Hange, you need to leave," Papa stood them up from behind and slid a crutch under each of their arms, then wheeled the fire extinguisher further into the room.

"But-"

"No buts! The sooner I know you'll get to safety, the sooner I can get him out."

"O-okay," they sobbed, and turned to leave.

When they stepped out of the dining hall, they glanced back one last time. The fire had engulfed the majority of the dining hall, and Papa stood with his back to the doors, trying to expel the flames to the best of his ability.

Breathing out heavily, they closed the doors, slid their crutches horizontally through the handles, and ran.

Pelting down the corridor, as soon as Hange turned the corner, they took the blade out of their trouser pocket and sliced their left ear clean off. They screamed into their hand and nearly fell over with the blinding pain of it, but found it within them to keep going, running on pure adrenaline. In their other pocket, they took out the previously prepared gauze pack and stuck it over the bleeding hole as best as they could while moving, trying to balance their glasses at the same time.

Papa would be fine. The crutches were flimsy, so they were confident he could break the door down after a minute or so. Even with the danger of barring him in a room filled with fire, it wouldn't kill him. Probably. They needed to buy all the time they could get, because they could only run so fast whilst simultaneously trying to support the side of their head.

Hange ran, and ran, and ran, until they were approaching the forest's fence that marked the permitted area of the orphanage.

"They're here!" Someone yelled, and Miche met them at the bars to help them climb over.

Moblit quickly wrapped a bandage several times around their head and tied it in a knot, securing their glasses as well.

"Should be good," he said.

"Then let's get out of here!" Hange yelled, and continued running to the wall.

One by one, the group followed them, the last of all being a wide-eyed twelve-year-old boy with a hand covering his wrapped ear.

25th December, 00:00

Levi had been playing an interesting game with Papa the past few months. Of course, he'd had clear memories of his life since birth, so it was natural Papa might suspect him of being born with a titan power. Levi had extremely limited information on what someone with a titan power was like, but at least knew about the abnormal memory and strength. He'd read up on how to build up lean muscles and look unsuspecting at the same time. He was naturally agile, but had trained himself to go beyond what he thought was even possible for his stature. Titans could also regenerate, after all, so it was important that his health was optimal if he was going to sell the idea of being one of their missing brats.

He'd once heard a passing comment about the thirteen-year lifespan, too. He didn't know if it counted months spent in the fetus, but figured that once a warrior titan's time was up, they didn't just drop dead on the spot. Their health probably deteriorated for the last bit of their life, perhaps rapidly at the end. For a little while, he'd been coughing and tripping, and appearing more weak and tired. After Erwin's shipment, he didn't even have to try, eating next to nothing and unable to focus on anything but his own impending demise.

All the while, he felt Papa's eyes on him like a hawk, watching him get closer to death each day with bated breath.

Papa was confident Levi was a titan, and it was the funniest thing he'd ever heard. He used it to his advantage, nonetheless. He'd been a selfish waste of space, not lifting a finger to stop his siblings being eaten if it meant he'd live longer. In his initial negotiation with Papa, he'd requested Hange and Erwin live until twelve so that he had some people his age to bond with, but he'd never indicated that he would put the two of them before himself. After all, as someone with a titan power, it would make more sense to sacrifice himself and get consumed as soon as possible, so that Marley were more likely to have all the titans at the same time, and then no one else would need to be eaten at all.

The thing was, Levi would do it in a heartbeat. It was just that he couldn't, because he wasn't a titan. He had very clear memories of everything from his own infancy and possibly even in the womb, but nothing more.

It was a shame. If he was a titan, maybe he really could have protected everyone.

Even his bare minimum plan to keep just two of the brats alive had failed, though. It was something that needed to be done perfectly, and he hadn't been perfect. He couldn't afford not to put his utmost effort in his final act, and so he committed fully to the bit. Even if staring through his best friend's horrified expression killed him more than the flames would. Fire had been the chosen method for multiple reasons, not least of all because he'd suffer a good while before finally succumbing to his death.

Still, at midnight, he said his last goodbyes and dropped the match, fully anticipating a horrific pain to engulf him for the next - and final - minute of his life.

Hange dived at his feet with an outstretched hand, and in hindsight, it would have been really bad if they had missed.

They barrelled into Levi's legs and he fell into the table, collapsing to the floor. When he looked up, they were laying in the puddle of oil with their palms clasped together.

"Gotcha!" They grinned, and stood back up, separating their hands to reveal the crushed match.

"The hell-" he started.

"Sorry, but you're not dying tonight. Not under my watch. No one is."

Someone knocked at the entrance to the dining hall, and Hange went to answer it. When the doors opened, Furlan and Nifa stood with various bundles in their arms.

"Special delivery," Furlan drawled, dangling a pair of boots in the air with two fingers.

"Thanks! Get changed then, clean freak. You're covered in muck."

Levi stared at Hange, bewildered, until Nifa came over and dumped a spare uniform in his hands. He blinked at her, but she just shrugged and turned back to Furlan, and they both went to the other end of the dining hall. Shaking his head, he decided to just do as he was told.

"I'm done," Levi said after a couple of minutes. He turned around to find Hange mostly dressed, yet missing shoes, like himself. "What abo-"

His neck snapped back as pain struck his cheek. He must have been tired, because he didn't notice that Hange had moved right in front of him, their palm outstretched. They then grabbed each side of his skull with their palms and knocked their heads together so hard he felt faint.

"Do you still want to die, moron? Stop whining and let's escape already!" They yelled, close enough to his face that their glasses fogged up from their combined body heat.

"What?" He breathed faintly. He had no idea what was happening. This wasn't supposed to happen. Was he actually dead?

Hange sighed. "You can die whenever you want, but not here," they said in a much calmer tone. "If you make the choice to work together, I'll show you the world outside the walls. You don't have to give up, Levi."

"Huh?" Levi mustered.

"Erwin's last words to you, that he wrote to me."

"From - from Erwin?" The emotional whiplash was giving him a headache.

"I really hoped he was wrong," Hange croaked, and he now noticed the tears in their eyes as they glared at him. "But he wasn't. He never was. He knew you would do this. We even talked about it a day or two before he was shipped out."

"Oh."

"We didn't have time to plan around it, though, so he left a last-minute list of instructions to execute the escape tonight. One where I stop you from doing something stupid like you just tried, and then we escape. No one else is dying here."

"We're done!" Nifa called, and she and Furlan stood up from where they knelt on the floor.

Levi looked over to see his clothes, some meat from the pantry, and what looked like clumps of brown fur all lumped together in a pile.

"What is that?" He asked, too exhausted to try and figure it out for himself.

"Your replacement," she answered. "So Papa thinks you're in the fire."

"It'll actually smell like you're burning up," Furlan cringed.

"Four-eyes, please don't tell me this is the hair you got cut ages ago," Levi inspected the pile as close as he dared to.

He heard Hange snicker, and then hands crept up the back of his neck and tugged on his hair. He jumped, but not quickly enough to stop his hair being sliced clean from his head.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"You know what I'm doing," they tossed it into the pile, brandishing a scalpel in their hand. "I dunno if your hair will smell different or something."

"You're crazy." He grabbed at his scalp. "And disgusting. I can't believe you kept that hair for over a month."

Hange's hair had grown back enough to be pulled into their usual ponytail, but Levi knew they'd had it cut shortly after Erwin had been eaten. To think that they'd been hoarding it all this time... it nearly made him gag.

"Nice to meet you too," they retorted. "Now come here so I can cut that tracker out."

"Absolutely not!" Levi hissed. "You've just put that through my hair."

"Oh, come on," Hange rolled their eyes. "It's yours. It's definitely clean."

"That's not how it works. Plus, it's covered in oil." He slipped a thumb into his waistband and retrieved the makeshift switchblade he always kept on him. "Use this. It's sterile."

"Where on earth did you get that?" Furlan peered over in intrigue. Levi held it out of his reach and placed it in Hange's hands.

"I'd like to know that too," they turned it over in their hands.

"Don't touch the blade," Levi warned them, and tucked what remained of his hair away from his ear. "Put it together over a couple of years."

"Yeah, yeah, your six years of preparations or whatever. Try not to scream."

Levi covered his mouth and distracted himself from the pain of Hange hacking into his ear by trying to collect his thoughts about the situation he now found himself in. There was no way Erwin could have planned around the fire unless he'd found Levi's stash. And even then, he would have had to deduce that Levi would set himself on fire, not just the building.

He sighed. Hange mumbled out an apology.

There was no point trying to decode Erwin's brain. This had been Levi's plan for a while, so it was a few years behind his current mental capacity. If he'd made a brand new plan, maybe Erwin wouldn't have figured it out. But this one must have been as obvious to Erwin as it would've to Levi if the younger boy tried to pull off something he believed to be brilliant several years ago today. An oversight on Levi's part, really. Everyone had gotten too smart, and he'd been too far in his own head to understand the extent of their capabilities.

"All done," Hange pulled a gauze pack out of their pocket and placed it over his ear. "Hold that there."

He did so, and watched them wipe the blade on the inside of their shirt.

"That needs to be washed," he said automatically.

"We don't have time for that. This'll have to do."

"Hange, you'll get an infection."

"It's that or the scalpel," they argued, and he sighed.

"Give me the scalpel, then." They handed it over to him without complaint. "What now?"

"Now, you do as you're told and follow Nifa and Furlan. Put those boots on at the door!" They called, and padded around in their socks to the box of oil containers, pouring a can up and down the dining room tables.

"You're staying here?"

"Don't fret, shorty. This is part of the plan."

"Okay," he said, pulling on the boots. "Be careful with that."

"Yep."

"And put the blade over the fire for as long as you can. It'll kill the bacteria."

"Message received," Hange rolled their eyes. "Off you go, now."

Furlan popped his head around one of the dining hall's doors and gestured that it was safe to leave. Levi followed him to the orphanage's side door as Nifa trailed behind them, watching their backs. They stepped outside in the freezing winter night air.

"Hange said you know where to go," Furlan whispered. "It's where the ropes are."

"The tree?"

"Dunno," he shrugged. "That's all I was told. Also, that's yours." He nodded towards a backpack set against the wall next to the door. "See ya later."

With that, the door was closed on him, and he stood outside alone.

"This is insane," Levi whispered to himself, staring at the bag.

Whatever. He struggled to put the backpack on whilst trying to keep his bleeding ear covered with the gauze, but managed it eventually, and set off to the perimeter of the forest at a jog.

He hadn't made it far into the trees when he heard the door slam open once again. He ducked behind one for cover and peered past it to see Nanaba holding the door open as the children slowly filed out one by one and then ran in his direction, Gelgar leading the charge. Watching them with wide eyes, Levi realised that they were all wearing the same makeshift backpacks, and Nanaba stopped everyone at the door to jam their ear trackers with the device Hange and himself had worked on over a month ago.

"Oi," he whispered as Gelgar stopped at the tree next to him, and the nine-year-old tripped over. "Oh. Sorry."

"Levi," he breathed heavily, holding a hand to his heart. "Don't do that ever again. I swear I nearly just wet myself." Levi pulled him up by his hand. "What are you doing here? You're supposed to be past the fence by now."

"I heard everyone coming out so I stopped."

"Well, run! It's just straight. Follow Eld if you don't know where you're going."

As if on cue, a blonde blur zipped past them, and Gelgar shoved Levi in the back to give him the momentum to start moving.

Shaking his head in disbelief, he jogged behind the six-year-old all the way to the fence. Eld put his palms on the top bar and pushed himself up with his upper body weight. Instantly, his waist tipped forward over the fence, and Levi caught up to him in time to put an arm in front of him, stopping him from keeling over completely.

"Careful," he said as Eld yelped in surprise, dangling over the edge. "You'll get your clothes dirty falling onto the ground like that."

The boy scrambled his legs over as Levi held him in place and made it over the fence on his feet rather than his face.

"Thanks!" He grinned, and then knelt down on the ground and slotted his hands together through the bars so that they could be used to give Levi a leg up.

Levi stared at the white kneecaps of Eld's trousers, already smudged with dirt.

"Dunno why I bother," he muttered to himself, and went to climb the fence by himself before realising that he'd have to let go of his ear to do so.

Reluctantly, he stood on Eld's interlocked fingers and placed a hand and a foot directly onto the top of the fence, pushing himself over and jumping down, all while keeping one side of his head fully supported.

After that, his siblings hurtled towards the fence in groups of three. Gelgar, Oluo and Petra came next, followed by Nanaba, Lynne and Gunther. When Moblit, Henning and Isabel arrived, Moblit took out a bundle of bandages from his pocket and he and Nanaba wrapped Levi's head properly.

"The rest of it's for Hange," Nanaba explained as she tried to saw it in two with a kitchen knife.

Levi got the scalpel out and held it out to her.

She took it, frowning. "Weren't they meant to have this?"

"Gave 'em something better."

"You were supposed to be getting the ropes out for us," Miche huffed in his direction as he pulled Furlan and Nifa over the fence.

"Furlan didn't tell me that."

"Not my fault!" Furlan wheezed, rubbing his arms.

"You were told to go to the wall. It was obvious," Miche told Levi.

"Whatever," he mumbled, still looking at everyone around him as they all caught their breath for a moment.

He was about to ask how the hell any of this was even happening when someone called out for Hange, and they were taken care of promptly before dashing off in the direction of the wall without a second glance at him. Levi stood at a standstill for a moment before Miche pulled him by the arm and they started running at the back of the group, herding the smaller and slower children forward.

"Oi, nosy," he said once his brain caught up with him. "How... how did they all agree to escape? They don't know about... do they know?"

"Yup."

Levi's eyes widened. "How?"

"Hange told them," Miche smirked at him.

...What? He blinked, just staring at Miche in silence, because he didn't understand what he'd just said, not really.

"We started with the next four oldest," he continued. "Nanaba, Gelgar, Nifa and Furlan all listened in with Moblit and I to the conversation Erwin and Hange had with Brother Reiner."

Levi huffed in disbelief. "Seriously?"

That far back, before Erwin had even left? He was stunned. That means they had known what was happening when Erwin was being sent to his death.

"They got exposed to the trackers and the fact that we weren't really being adopted, just to gauge their reactions. The rest were clued in gradually over the next month. Papa thought Hange gave up, but they were giving us instructions to carry out for them."

From time to time, Levi had glanced out of the windows of wherever he had chosen to sulk that day to see Hange sitting at the tree, often surrounded by people trying to cheer them up (his job, but he was too pathetic to be able to do it then).

To think that such a display of misery was really a front for disguising meetups for the escape was so brilliant that he had to force down a grin. Another fault of his, to underestimate Hange as well as Erwin, when the two of them possessed insanely brilliant minds.

When they got to the wall, he saw Hange throwing down a bunch of ropes - a mixture of both literal and makeshift ones - with fist-sized stones attached to them down to Nanaba.

"We took longer than expected getting everyone out. You'll have to help with this," Nanaba said to Levi, passing some of them to Miche.

"What do I need to do?" Levi asked.

"Watch and learn."

With that, Miche walked a fair distance away from the group. To Levi's utter disbelief, Miche span one of the ropes around several times before launching it as high as he could over the wall. He then lightly pulled the rope, grimaced, and tugged it until it fell back down. He attempted once more, and when he tugged the rope this time, he gave a thumbs up.

Hange whooped and ran up to take the end of the rope from him, moving out of his way as he prepared to hurl another.

"Think you can do that?" They called out to Levi.

He shook his head, but took several of the ropes from Nanaba anyway and moved into position. "Absolutely crazy," he muttered under his breath.

"Make sure it's hooked over the other side, not just the top," Miche told him.

"Whatever. It's just shot put, isn't it?"

The taller boy snorted and handed his second rope to Hange.

It took Levi four tries before he hooked his first rock over the wall. It was a huge distance to throw such heavy objects, especially without practice, and it was even more difficult to do whilst holding the other end of the rope and spinning without getting caught in it to ensure that the rocks didn't fall over the other side completely. All the while, the other children cheered them on and passed ropes up the line.

He must have thrown a dozen rocks over the wall before they ran out. Splitting the weight between them, Hange and Nanaba met each other in the middle, holding the ends of the ropes, and Levi trailed Miche as he walked towards them.

"Please don't tell me everyone's going to climb up with this," Levi frowned. "'Cause there's no wa-"

"Not everyone," Hange grinned. "Just one."

"Who?" He asked, and then broke into a cold sweat, looking down at his boots.

Everyone else was wearing their regular shoes.

"You're kidding."

"Levi, you've got the best chance," they pleaded, handing him a hardy pair of gardening gloves. "You're the lightest whilst also being strong enough to pull another person up when you get to the top. There's a proper rope in your bag to pull the next person up with, so you can let go of all the other ropes as soon as you're on solid ground."

"Hange-"

"We don't have time for this," Miche grumbled, and squatted down, facing away from him. "Get on my back."

"This is insane," he whispered for what felt like the millionth time, but put the gloves on and clambered up anyway.

Hange and Nanaba passed the ropes into his hands, loosening their grips a little. He felt the weight immediately.

"We can't tie you to them, because you might topple over the other side," Hange explained.

"That doesn't help," Levi said with gritted teeth, gripping with all his might.

"Jump to the top in small bits. Doesn't matter how long it takes."

Levi thought that it mattered a lot, actually, given that they were running away from someone who would do absolutely anything to catch up to them and stop them right now.

"Whatever you do, just don't let go until you're at the top. Miche'll catch you if you fall back down this side."

"Fine. What have we got to lose?" he tittered without amusement.

"Ready?" They asked.

"Not really, but it's happening anyway, so just do it."

"Alright."

Hange and Nanaba let go of the ropes, and Levi immediately wrapped his hands around them twice to secure them a bit better. Miche lifted him until he was stood on his shoulders, and Levi took a deep breath before jumping. He fell back down immediately when he put his boots to the flat of the wall, and Miche grasped him awkwardly.

"Damn it."

"If you can't do it-" the blonde whispered to him.

"I can. Just... just throw me up a bit. Momentum or something."

He had to do it, because if they didn't get over this wall, they'd have to storm the gate directly, and someone would definitely get hurt then.

Miche pushed him further up, and Levi managed to balance the weight of the rocks on the other side by jumping up the wall a few times before gravity took over and he slipped down into Miche's arms again.

He swore properly this time, heat beginning to creep up his neck as his heart beat faster.

"The backup option is you swinging from a really tall tree up onto the surface."

"Leave off," Levi hissed. "Once more."

This time, he went for speed. As soon as he was launched, he jumped once, twice, three times up before feeling the pull of the rocks hitting the edge of the top of the wall's other side. He leant backwards and jumped with as much force and in as quick succession as he could, ignoring how the ropes cut into the skin of his hands.

Facing the sky like this, he remembered the very first time he'd attempted to climb the wall. He was too young to really recall his age, and had no equipment with him, so he just scrabbled at the wall with his hands for a few moments before giving up. But what Levi remembered clearly was the way he'd looked up at the clear blue sky, longing for the peace it seemed to radiate, and how he'd reached out for it to no avail.

The sky tonight was pitch black, and it was mostly cloudy, but the few stars that peeked out made it just as enticing to him as it had been all those years ago.

Levi reached as high as he could, and then, when it seemed like he'd go down again, he pushed up in his best attempt to delay it, and then he felt the ropes strain upwards a little. His next jump was lighter, and he knew that he'd surpassed the point where gravity would be to his detriment.

He was calm as he leisurely hopped the final stretch of the wall, being pulled up with more and more force until he was dragged over the top. He let go just in time to tumble towards the edge of the other side of the wall, precariously close, but still on top. The rumbling crash of the rocks against the base of the wall went completely ignored by him as he raised his head.

The world outside the walls was endless. Endless forest, endless sky, endless clouds and endless stars. It just kept going and going, with nothing but infinity peppered along the horizon. It was beautiful and free, and Levi couldn't believe that he was witnessing it with his own two eyes. He never thought he'd live to see what was beyond the wall, assuming his death was set in stone many years ago, whether by a titan's jaw or his own guilt. He would have happily died viewing a scene like this.

"Levi?" He heard various voices calling up to him, and scooted away from the edge of the wall to stand up, but ended up collapsing again.

Now that the adrenaline had worn off, his arms and legs were shattered. Even with the gloves, Levi could feel the friction burns simmering up his hands, and his weakened muscles throbbing with ache.

"Come on," he whispered to himself, and ended up crawling to the other edge of the wall.

He stuck his head over and waved, and the panicked shouts turned quickly to cheers. He couldn't help but grin to himself - he bloody deserved that praise after the improvised madness he'd just been forced to perform.

"Hey!" Hange called out. "Who do you think the heaviest person you can lift up from down here is?"

"You're taking the mick," Levi breathed out.

"What?" They shouted.

He closed his eyes and enjoyed a few more seconds of peace. He was exhausted, and yet he still had to pull all the brats up to the wall by hand now.

"Maybe Eld," he yelled down at them.

"Gotcha! Throw one end of the rope down and we'll tie him to it."

Levi pulled his aching arms out of his backpack and took the rope out. As quickly as he could, he made a basic harness around himself before throwing the other end down, knowing that blood and sweat were beginning to seep through his gloves and potentially make him lose his grip.

Getting Eld up the wall was the most pain he'd been in for a long time. With every tug, it felt like the tissue in Levi's hands split open a little bit more. It also took far too long, and at least a dozen times he thought he caught the visage of Papa in the distant smoke, coming to get everyone before he could bring them up. But after every double-take, Levi saw nothing, and eventually, Eld's head finally popped over the edge of the wall. As soon as the younger boy was solid on his feet, Levi collapsed to his knees, breathing so hard through his mouth that his throat was beginning to hurt.

"This is so much higher than it is down there," Eld panted, and crawled over to Levi to have his harness removed before stilling. "Why are you crying?"

Levi hadn't noticed. "Because you're heavy," he wheezed, wiping his face with one arm and batting Eld away with the other. "Keep your muddy hands away from me."

Shakily, he undid Eld's harness, wincing every time his palms stretched and irritated his wounds, and then threw the rope down the wall again.

"Should I pull you from behind?" Eld asked.

"You're not touching me, you're filthy."

Eld rolled his eyes and wiped his palms on his trousers, which were just as dirty.

"Hold the rope in front of me. Pull as hard as you can, and let go if you feel yourself being pulled forward so much you can't keep your footing."

"Okay. We're ready!" Eld called down to those below. "It's Nifa next, by the way."

"Great," Levi muttered, shaking his hands, though it was futile.

It would be a lie to say it was easier pulling another child up with Eld's help. While the six-year-old was strong for his size, and did pull a fair bit, he did not understand that he needed to put every ounce of effort he had like his life depended on it - because it did.

Nifa was taller and heavier, and Levi grew more exhausted by the second, but thankfully, she did her own manoeuvring by bouncing her feet against the wall like Levi did to lighten her weight with each tug. When she made it up, she was much more useful, and by the time the three of them hauled Nanaba up, his hands had not fallen off, and he was free to let the others pull one another over the wall.

"Miche's the last one," he heard Hange call, pulling his attention away from Furlan and Gelgar, who were redistributing some of the supplies everyone else was carrying to Levi's backpack.

Looking around, he took count of everyone that had made it up the wall, and then looked back at Hange, Nanaba and Nifa. They looked too strained to be pulling up another five-year-old.

"You're bringing him up now? Aren't there more down there?"

"I said he's the last one," they panted, and before long, Miche was up and over the edge.

Levi kept looking, but no matter how many times he counted, he knew that this was not nearly the number of children there should have been. The orphanage housed up to forty, and though they were rarely at full capacity, they were always close to it. Miche brought the total of those present to a meagre fifteen.

"Why aren't the under-fives here?" He approached Hange as the other elder children dispersed to gather everyone up.

"I'm not bringing them." Levi's mouth parted, but Hange continued before he could say anything. "I kept thinking about what you said, and you're right. It's even more difficult in the winter and without Erwin, and the infants and toddlers make up more than half of the orphanage. And... Moblit brought up a good point. There's the kids in the other sections. We can't save everyone right now no matter how much we plan."

Levi wasn't surprised, but he thought it a shame. Though he often claimed safely escaping with everyone wasn't possible, he'd been proven wrong before. Secretly, he'd been hoping that everything he believed to be impossible would be miraculously accounted for by Hange's brain. Of course, that was too unrealistic. And he hadn't ever considered the brats in the other houses, though it made him feel guilty to admit it.

Hange continued. "So I told Armin about it-"

"What?" He couldn't stop himself from exclaiming.

They smiled at him sadly. "I told Armin. And the worst part is, he already figured out a lot of it himself, the little smartie. I told him my doubts around bringing everyone, and he made the decision himself. He's the only one staying behind that knows the secret. That situation's been left to him for now."

Levi was speechless.

Armin was four years old. To leave any sort of situation to a four-year-old was absurd, let alone a burden like this. The fact that he'd already figured out what was going on and kept it to himself was just as shocking, given he wasn't the one Levi had suspected was becoming more aware of their situation. But Armin was unusually bright, and looked up to Erwin and Hange a lot.

And he wasn't the only one to be hiding his knowledge come Erwin's send off. By that point Nanaba, Gelgar, Nifa and Furlan had all known, and Levi had been none the wiser. Nanaba had just cleaned up the plates Mikasa had dropped without a word, Gelgar and Furlan expressed that they'd miss Erwin with the nonchalance of people who said goodbye every other month, and Nifa had smiled and wished him well. He'd certainly underestimated them for sure.

"One day I'll come back to get them all," Hange continued. "Shiganshina and all the other houses, with a detailed plan that can't go wrong. But we can't do that today, so for now, we just gotta escape while we still can."

Ridiculous, Levi thought, but his heart swelled with admiration all the same. Hange's empathy for others, no matter how far removed they might be from Hange themself, was what he often appreciated the most about them. If they didn't have it, they'd probably just view Levi as a miserable loner. But they'd seen through him right from the start, and he was eternally grateful for it.

All of a sudden, the ringing of many bells surrounded them from all directions.

"That was quick," Hange muttered under their breath. They grabbed Levi's hand, and together, they began running across the wall, the other children following close behind.

"Now what?" Levi asked, glancing down the wall. "We're hundreds of metres away from the bridge."

"Oh, that doesn't matter. We were never going to the bridge anyways. We'll be crossing up there." They pointed a little to the right as they continued to run, eventually stopping to face the cliff on the other side from the wall.

"What do you mean? Erwin said-"

"Erwin said in the letter he left me that we can cross at this spot. It wasn't possible at the time, but we can do it now. This'll spin them out. They'll never think we're going somewhere other than the bridge."

"This is ridiculous," he said again, more to himself than anyone else.

"It's fine," Moblit assured him. "We know what we're doing."

"You're kidding."

If Moblit of all people was trying to ease Levi's anxiety, the younger boy had either ensured that the plan was foolproof or deluded himself in an attempt to remain sane.

Yet Levi was made the fool, as he watched Nifa get lowered down back into the orphanage's boundaries before she climbed up a very tall tree some ways away and pulled out a long string of woven medical gauze with a rock tied to one end of it from her backpack. She tossed it to Miche as she tied the other end to one of the tree's branches. Levi could only spectate as Miche lassoed the rope in the air a few times before launching it straight over to the cliff on the other side, looping it around the branch of a tree to stabilise it.

And then Levi could see it. A single, long line between two trees, one end in their prison, the other out of it. Tethering them to the outside world.

"Is this actually happening?" He whispered under his breath.

"'Course it is!" Hange grinned. "As long as the first person makes it over, anyway."

He didn't even have time to process their words before Miche grabbed a hanger from a bag settled on the floor, held it over the top of the rope with one hand either side of it, and then stepped off the edge of the cliff.

"Oi, wait!" Levi panicked and darted forward, but was stopped by Hange's firm grasp.

He twisted away from them, but Miche had long since slid down the makeshift zipline, and there was no sight of him.

It was quiet for a few seconds. Then Miche's head popped out of a bush directly across from them, looking relatively unharmed in the light from the lantern held up in his hand, and the children burst out in another round of cheers.

"Our turn!" Furlan announced with a flourish, and he and Gelgar stepped forward, holding soda bottle rockets with the same makeshift ropes attached to their ends.

Gelgar carefully tossed the rocks attached to the other ends to Nifa, who caught them deftly and once again tied them to the tree, and then the two boys knelt on the ground, preparing their toys.

Levi remembered, suddenly, seeing something like this from the library window one day. Furlan and Gelgar were launching the bottles so far across the land that they nearly hit a tree thirty metres or so away. Tonight, as the boys set their rockets off, they truly did land in the trees, and the two high-fived as Miche fished them out and attached them properly to the branches, making three clean escape routes.

"It's ready!" Miche called, and Nanaba was next to step away from the rucksack filled with hangers.

"Smell ya later, Levi!" She called as she ziplined down the leftmost ropeway.

This too, he recalled belatedly, was a new activity the children had taken up to during free time recently: ziplining between the trees with hangers. It would have built up their upper body strength and prepared them for this perfectly.

It's impressive.

He had thought it impossible. Though of course, he couldn't deny the genius of a masterplan that was being conducted as Petra, Gelgar and Oluo all successfully landed on the other side, and Eld, Gunther, and Nifa - who had just been pulled back up the wall by Hange, Eld and Moblit - lined up in their place.

Young, young children that were barely blinking an eye in the life-threatening situation they were in, crossing such an expansive cliff it made even him feel a little apprehensive. But clearly, they were all fully prepared, both physically and mentally. They could do it. They were doing it.

You don't have to give up, Levi.

That realisation had him choking up. Because he had. He'd given up many, many years ago on the thought of saving all these children. All his brothers and sisters and siblings were written off without a second thought, condemned to death. He thought he knew all there was to know about this orphanage and their situation, but he'd still come to a dead end the moment Erwin had walked back up that hill.

He supposed that's what he deserved for challenging Hange. Sometimes it felt like they loved nothing more than proving him wrong. And, as he watched Moblit, Lynne and Henning all cross the cliff without issue, it was apparent that Hange had come up with the most left-field, eccentric, genius plan of all time. Their belief in the impossible had truly paid off.

"My hands are too sweaty!" Isabel's voice wailed out, purging Levi from his thoughts. She shook violently with the hanger in her hands. "And I have to hold on for so long! If I slip and fall Oluo's gonna make fun of me forever!"

Her outburst caused Furlan's arms to lower slightly as he peered over the edge of the cliff, his face pale. Levi wasn't surprised in the slightest that he'd dawdled around long enough to be one of the last children to cross.

Hange looked stressed for the first time all night. It seemed they hadn't accounted for the possibility that someone would end up too scared to do it after all, and then put another child off.

He huffed. With an insane plan came insane risks. In part, he was a bit relieved that it wasn't going perfectly, lest Hange develop an ego even worse than Erwin's.

"Hey, brat," he said, picking Isabel up. "You're fine. We can do it together."

"Huh?" Her emerald eyes glistened with tears, darting about wildly.

"Hange, can you tie Isabel to me with that rope you just pulled Nifa up with?"

"Oh. Sure! Do you know how to cross?"

"Obviously. It looks like child's play." They smirked at one another before Hange retrieved the rope and began forming a harness for Isabel. "Furlan?"

"What?" The seven-year-old's teeth chattered as he hugged himself.

"Stop being a coward. Are you going to let those little five-year-olds make you look like a baby with how easily they rode that zipline?"

"Obviously not!" He huffed, straightening himself up.

"Good. Hold tight, Isabel."

Once Hange stepped away, Levi waited only a second for Isabel's little hands to wrap around his neck firmly before launching himself off the wall and across the zipline. The cold winter air rushed past them as they hurtled towards the bushes. Isabel squealed in his ear, and the noise and pace made the adrenaline finally hit him; they were escaping the orphanage.

Nanaba and Gelgar both braced to slow them down as they reached the end of the zipline, and with their help, Levi landed firmly on his feet.

"See?" He murmured to Isabel, who was blinking up owlishly at him. "Piece of cake."

She giggled, grinning brightly. "Easy! That was so fast!"

He hid his watery smile in her hair as he began untying her harness.

Truthfully, it hadn't been easy at all. All these years, it had felt so difficult. And while Isabel may have thought it wasn't too bad, she could just as easily have been shipped off in Eren's place last month. Levi had resigned himself to mourning both of them anyway, believing none of them would make it out alive in time.

No more, he swore to himself. From now on, not a single one of you will die under my watch. I won't give up on you ever again.

Furlan screamed his way down the zipline, and Isabel laughed at him so infectiously that by the time his feet touched the floor, everyone else had joined in. The boy paid them no mind, sinking to his knees while he tried to collect himself.

Meanwhile, Levi looked around at all those who had joined them outside the walls. While he'd privately dreamed Hange would find a way to get everyone out, he certainly never thought he'd remain alive to see the fruits of such a plan. Of course, Erwin had been sacrificed in his place. Levi would have set himself on fire and achieved nothing as brilliant as what was happening here. And he was free. As soon as Hange crossed, they'd be free.

He glanced up, and he knew immediately that something was wrong. Hange's hands were in position on the hanger, ready to cross, but they were frozen in place, looking to their side. Levi stepped past the children to the edge of the cliff, and saw him.

Papa was running as fast as he could towards Hange, and it was suddenly very clear just how far apart Levi and Hange were from one another. Hange kept staring at Papa, and Papa kept coming closer towards them, an arm out ready to grasp them whenever he got within reach.

Levi yanked on the centre ropeway as hard as he could. The hanger jostled, and Hange's attention snapped back towards him. He motioned behind him with a sharp jerk of his hand, and the moment Hange's feet left the cliff, he pulled out his scalpel and sliced the other two ropes.

When he faced the cliff again, Hange was halfway across, and Papa's hand was on the rope.

He's going to cut it, Levi thought. But Papa, of course, was in his nightwear, half burnt off, and had nothing else but his own hands. He linked them above the rope, one foot on the edge as his predatory gaze passed from Hange to Levi.

Levi held his scalpel high in the air; the blade glinted in the moonlight. I'll cut it before you can make it.

You wouldn't. Papa stared at him with wide eyes and raised eyebrows.

I would.

Maybe not six weeks ago, before their deal was shattered, and Papa smashed Levi's face into the ground, and locked him inside while Hange and Erwin did their inspection, and then dragged Erwin to his death the very next day. Levi was ready to forgive eleven years of watching this man cast out a hundred of his siblings, and however many had come before him, because with that had come just as many years of being cared for and having someone to talk to about the truth of their existence. He understood, at a basic level, the overwhelming loneliness that came with knowing everything and having no one to help him find another way out of the hellish hand he'd been dealt.

But now? Levi would happily kill him without hesitation, and consider it his favourite Christmas-slash-birthday present yet.

Hange barrelled right into Levi, yet he stood his ground, his arms naturally finding their way around them. He didn't break Papa's gaze as he sliced the rope above them, pulled down to his height by the weight from the hanger. With one clean cut, the tie between his siblings and himself from the man whose job was to prepare them for death was severed.

Papa let go of the rope and took a step back, his eyes roaming across the children, of whom were now silent. Levi had tuned it out, but realised they were making rather a lot of noise before, when it was very possible that Papa could catch up to Hange. Levi thought it more likely that Papa was more interested in leaving the walls himself and escaping than dragging them all back with him. But he'd never tell the rest of them that, because then they might feel sorry for him, and they'd never know the extent of Papa's evil like Levi did.

Besides, Papa couldn't leave anyway. Not if he had the same procedures performed on him as Brother Reiner. He was trapped, forever.

Papa seemed to realise this too, resignation written all over his face. He would be punished greatly for this. They had successfully escaped. Papa didn't seem to have his communication device on him, having not called for backup nor alerted anyone to their location. He'd found them all on his own, and could do nothing more but watch them leave.

Eventually, his eyes were locked with Levi's once more.

Hange had slipped out of Levi's arms and was pulling at his hand, forcing him away from the cliff's edge. The other children, satisfied with this silent closure, began backing away into the forest, away from Papa.

"Bye-bye," Hange murmured softly, tugging them to their freedom.

Levi finally ripped his gaze from the man who had fathered him almost all of his life. Despite everything, he'd ensured his safety and comfort before the certain death that he thought awaited him today.

"Goodnight, Zeke," he said, and turned to face the world outside the walls head-on.