Opening 2: Aot

Then the next titan was already there. And the next. And the next.

"Next time," Eren breathed, steam curling from his lips. "I'll find out what you are."

Levi appeared on Eren's left flank, blood spattered across his cravat. "Don't freeze, brat. You wanted to see the outside world? Fight your way there."

The hangar bay of the Survey Corps fell silent. Not the peaceful kind—the kind that comes right before a storm. opening 2 aot

But he did think. He always did.

The words didn't come from anyone's mouth. They rose from the air itself, from the vibration of thousands of ODM gears locking into place, from the clench of fists around triggers.

Levi didn't wait for the rest of the order. He was already gone—a blur of green cloak and silver steel, slicing through the first wave of 3-meter class titans before they could even turn their vacant smiles toward the formation. Then the next titan was already there

Beside him, Mikasa adjusted her white scarf, her dark eyes fixed on the horizon. "Don't run ahead this time," she said quietly.

"Wir sind die Jäger."

Connie nearly got snatched. Sasha pulled him up by his hood at the last second. Jean cursed both of them while bisecting a quadrupedal type that had crawled too close. "Next time," Eren breathed, steam curling from his lips

Their eyes met.

Hange laughed somewhere to the left, half-mad with exhilaration. "They're moving strangely today! Did someone change the weather?!"

Behind them, Armin clutched a weathered book to his chest—the one with faded diagrams of saltwater and burning seas. If we survive this, he thought, I'll finally see them.

The doors were fully open now. Beyond the walls, beyond the forest, beyond the fields of grain that would never be harvested this season—freedom waited. Or death. Or something worse.