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[wingbound]

[ Maybe he did. Guilt is a funny thing; there's never a shortage of it around these parts. ]

[ It killed you, he thinks. It killed him and it also killed you. In a way, I did. But he doesn't say it. They're right, too. It would have happened sooner or later. The timing of it was just... unlucky. ]

[ That and the sheer weight of the wills they were meant to carry on that just became too many, too soon. Anybody could've buckled under that. It's a surprise they both did as well as they have, all things considered. It's easy to think of different paths when looking back, which is why he does his best not to do it, ever. But once all the fighting was done and over, what else was left there to do?.. ]

[ The better choice and the right choice isn't always the same, is it?.. ]

[ He shakes his head slightly, still not agreeing with them, but he can't exactly disagree, either. It's... complicated. Everything that went through his head at the time, everything contributing to his decision. ]

You really think I'd live regret-free if I'd killed the kid instead?

[ A rhetorical question, of course. He made the choice, and he would make the same one if he had to do it again. He had accepted that it was the path of less regret; it's just that both of them still had a fair bunch. ]

[ Erwin would have loved the world, he thinks, at least if he had lived to really see it. But there's no doubt in his mind that he would have chosen the same way if he was able to make that decision. Everything was just too heavy at that point. All of their time was coming to an end; Levi had just clung on more stubbornly than the rest, it seems. ]

[ The kids had what it took to take the torch in the end. That's what matters. ]

...yeah. It would have.

[ He wanted to do it, he really did, but he couldn't do that to him. Not after all those deaths. Not after he had finally found peace. Not after he got the front row seat to a demonstration of what awaited him. Ironic, really, how Floch had really pushed him toward the decision he later ridiculed himself. ]

[ But Hange is right, of course. Talking about it isn't going to change shit. It just... made it feel lighter, a little bit. It made him feel like maybe after all this time, they finally understood, at least a little, judging from their words. ]

[ And then it's his turn to stop them, because while it's easy to rag on it now, it really was a sound plan with the information they had available. Far as they knew, the safest thing was to keep Zeke and Eren apart, and who else was there that Hange could trust with something that important? ]

You couldn't have known. [ He says, a little more firmly, finally managing to glance their way. It's still a painful memory, but any regrets he may feel about it too do still stem from that day in Shiganshina; the first time he'd failed to kill Zeke. Everything could have been averted if he'd just done that, if he hadn't paused to think about who he could possibly still save. ] It was a sound decision with the information we had at the time.

[ If he doesn't get to beat himself up now that he's retired and free to do so, neither do they. ]