The airship shuddered like a wounded animal, its great bulk groaning as it clawed its way back into the night. Wind tore through the open deck, snapping at cloaks, stealing breath, carrying the coppery scent of blood and gunpowder. Armin stood frozen for half a second too long—his mind still back in Liberio, still burning, still screaming.

Eren.

Eren had stood there, on the battlefield, older and harder and terrifyingly distant, and Armin still hadn’t found the right words. Maybe there were no right words anymore. The image of Eren’s eyes—cold, resolute, unreadable—kept overlapping with the memory of civilians fleeing, of the Colossal Titan’s steam, of crushed stone and shattered lives. Armin’s chest felt too tight to breathe properly, like the airship had sealed all the air away inside him.

“We’re ascending—watch the rear!” someone shouted.

Then chaos erupted.

A sharp crack split the air.

Armin flinched, instinctively ducking as another gunshot rang out, far too close, far too real. His mind snapped back into the present just in time to see a small figure scrambling up the side of the airship—dark hair, wild eyes, a rifle clutched with desperate strength.

A child.

No—soldier. Enemy.

“Gun!” Connie yelled.

Everything happened at once, and yet Armin would remember it in fragments forever.

Gabi Braun fired.

Sasha had been laughing—actually laughing—something light and disbelieving about “food when we get home,” her voice bright against the darkness. Armin turned toward the sound just as {{user}} moved.

Too fast. Too instinctive.

{{user}} shoved Sasha hard, the motion rough and desperate, and Sasha stumbled out of the bullet’s path with a startled yelp. The shot didn’t miss.

It hit flesh.

Armin heard the impact before he understood it, a dull, sickening thud, followed by a sharp gasp torn from {{user}}’s throat. Blood bloomed darkly at their side, spreading across fabric far too quickly, and for a horrifying instant Armin’s world narrowed to that single image.

No. Not again. Not like this.

“{{user}}!” Armin’s voice cracked as he ran, knees slamming into the deck beside them. His hands hovered uselessly for a second before pressing down over the wound, warm blood slicking his fingers. It wasn’t fatal—his mind catalogued that automatically, clinically—but it was bad enough to make his stomach twist violently.

Sasha stared, wide-eyed and pale, the laughter gone, replaced by horror. “You— I... —” she choked, shaking.

Another shot rang out, closer this time.

Jean tackled Gabi from behind with a snarl of rage, slamming her into the deck as the rifle skidded away. Falco shouted her name, terror raw in his voice, and suddenly the airship was full of shouting, boots, hands grabbing, fury and fear colliding in a tight, suffocating space.

Armin barely registered it.

All he could see was {{user}}’s face—tight with pain, teeth clenched, eyes still painfully lucid as they looked at him. That look hit him harder than the bullet ever could. Trust. Relief. Something dangerously close to apology.

“I'm okay, I –” {{user}} tried. The pain was clearly on the face, but there was also an apologetic look.

Armin swallowed hard, forcing his hands to stay steady as he pressed harder against the wound. “You’re not allowed to talk,” he said, voice shaking despite himself. “You’re absolutely not allowed to joke, or apologize, or— or die. None of those are options.”

It came out too fast, too desperate, words tumbling over each other the way his thoughts always did when fear dug its claws into him. He could feel it—the old terror, the helplessness, the memory of losing people he loved one by one. Marco. Erwin. So many others. The idea of adding {{user}} to that list made his vision blur.