Chapter 91: Eren and Levi... Died?
"Hange," Levi's voice cut through the worried murmurs, "that last hit… I didn't feel any pain."
Hange paused, then the light in her eyes shone even brighter. "What?! Tell me everything!"
Levi concisely described the sensation: the feeling of impact and damage were still there, but the pain itself was absent.
"Incredible!" Hange scribbled excitedly in her notebook. "Is this a common phenomenon? Eren! Armin! You try too!"
The Eren Titan let out a low growl in response. In the subsequent sparring with Levi, he also began to try concentrating on "ignoring" or "turning off" the pain. Perhaps it was because the Titan form was naturally less sensitive to pain, or perhaps it was his own astonishing willpower, but Eren quickly got the hang of it. He took several powerful slashes from Levi head-on. His massive body only staggered slightly, and his roars held no trace of agony.
Armin had a harder time. Following Hange's instructions, he tried to endure some energy impacts that bounced off the training ground walls, their power already significantly reduced. He could feel the impact, feel his body jarring, but completely blocking the stinging sensation that followed always seemed just out of reach.
"It requires intense concentration… or maybe, self-deception?" Armin analyzed, panting and slightly frustrated.
"Interesting! So interesting!" Hange excitedly recorded the different results from the three of them. "Pain suppression! It's practically a trait born for battle!"
The rest of the training session focused on testing and understanding this new ability. Levi, with his immense self-control, could almost completely block out the pain from non-fatal injuries. This allowed him to be even more fluid in his engagement with the Eren Titan, capable of performing more extreme maneuvers, even if his body accumulated more minor damage as a result.
The Eren Titan, after getting used to it, could also block pain most of the time. This allowed him to unleash his power more wildly, but also made him more prone to ignoring the cumulative damage to his body.
Armin, through continuous effort, could barely manage to temporarily block the pain from minor impacts.
With every hit taken, every attempt to block the pain, they could feel the physical reactions more clearly—the impact, the jarring, the tearing sensation in their muscles, the groaning of their bones. Only the sharp, flinch-inducing sensation of "pain" was missing.
It was a strange and dangerous experience. Was the body no longer fully their own, but merely a tool that could be used more efficiently? Or perhaps, only when they stopped thinking of themselves as real people and treated their bodies purely as instruments of combat could they effectively use this ability?
Hange keenly observed and recorded everything, meticulously noting the degree and duration of pain suppression for each person, as well as the potential underlying damage being incurred.
…
The training ended. Eren deactivated all his forms, so exhausted he could barely stand. Shifting into a Titan and back took a huge toll, and the added mental strain of trying to block pain left him pale. Levi and Armin also deactivated their transformations, similarly drained. Levi's posture had an almost imperceptible stiffness; he had clearly accumulated a fair amount of damage. Armin, on the other hand, was mostly mentally fatigued.
Mikasa, though not yet a Magical Girl, felt her heart grow heavy watching her comrades put themselves through this near self-mutilation.
"Alright! Invaluable data!" Hange closed her notebook, her sharp gaze sweeping over Eren and Levi, focusing particularly on their mysterious Soul Gems.
"Hey, Eren, Levi!" Hange's voice was full of investigative passion. She hurried over to them, pointing at the gems on their chests. "Could you maybe lend those to me and Armin for a closer look? Just for a little while! I want to see the material, the structure, how they differ from ordinary gems!" Hange's eyes were shining, filled with a pure curiosity for the unknown.
Eren looked at Levi. Levi glanced at Hange, then down at the gem on his own chest. He remained silent, implicitly agreeing to Hange's not-unreasonable request. He reached up and detached his Soul Gem. Eren followed suit.
"Excellent! Thank you for your cooperation!" Hange beamed. "Armin! Let's go over there where the light is better and take a proper look!"
Hange, along with Armin, who was equally enthusiastic about studying the gems, walked toward the edge of the training ground where it was more open and sunny. The sound of their footsteps faded as they walked away, heads bent over the gems in their hands.
Back in the center of the training ground, Eren and Levi stretched their bodies. Mikasa and the others relaxed slightly.
However, disaster struck suddenly.
Just as Hange and Armin reached the edge of the training ground, about a hundred meters away from Eren and Levi…
Thump!
Thump!
Two dull sounds came almost simultaneously.
Without any warning, Eren and Levi collapsed backward. Their bodies went rigid and hit the ground hard. The light instantly vanished from their eyes. Breathing, heartbeat—stopped.
"EREN!!!"
Mikasa's terrifying shriek cut through the air like an alarm, jolting Hange and Armin, who were engrossed in studying the gems, back to reality. They both snapped their heads up and looked toward the center of the training ground.
Eren and Levi were lying motionless on the ground. Mikasa was hunched over Eren, letting out near-hysterical sobs.
"What's happening?!" Hange's face changed instantly. She knew something was terribly wrong. "Quick! Back!"
Forgetting the gems, she and Armin spun around and sprinted back towards Eren and Levi as fast as they could. Their footsteps pounded on the ground, the distance shrinking rapidly.
One hundred fifty meters… one hundred twenty… one hundred…
Just as they crossed the hundred-meter mark from the fallen pair, something else happened.
Eren and Levi, who had been as still as corpses, both twitched simultaneously. Color rushed back into their grey faces. Their unfocused pupils sharpened. They both gasped sharply for air.
"Cough— cough cough!" Eren coughed violently, his eyes fluttering open in confusion.
Levi also frowned, pushing himself into a sitting position, his eyes holding the dazed look of someone just pulled back from darkness.
"Eren!" Mikasa cried tears of joy, hugging him tightly.
Eren looked around, bewildered, then at Mikasa beside him. "What— what happened?" he asked, clutching his chest, which felt tight. He had no idea what had just occurred.
"Huff… huff…" Levi quickly regained his composure, his sharp gaze sweeping over Hange and Armin as they ran up, his eyes landing on the Soul Gems clutched in their hands. "What just happened?"
Hange looked down at the gem in her hand, then back at the two who had just seemingly returned from the dead. An unbelievable hypothesis began to form in her mind…