Nao's POV
The moon had sunk low in the sky, casting the sundial outside the small house spindles shadow at about 2 am. Nao awoke, mind racing in the silence, trying to figure out what had him woken so early, and only a few hour after laying down on his makeshift bed.

Then the silence hit like a wave, crashing down and around his ears with the force of a thousand Titans. It was complete and total silence, the kind that smothers and crushes, eveolping everything and everyone. Nao's eyes were wide in the night, pupils straining to gleam something, anything from the night. He stood, slowly, as not to wake the others. Fumbling towards where he thought the door was, Nao was uncomfortably aware of his heavy breathing in the silence.

Nao's fingers brushed the brass doorknob at the same moment something squished beneath his foot. He turned the knob, letting a silver shard of moonlight shatter the darkness filling the room.

In that moment, Nao lost his compsure for the first time since he had been a small child. His face twisted with horror, eyes squeezing shut against the horrors pressing against his eyelids. No-no-no-no-no, this can't be real, this can't be real... Nao unclenched his fist, a single wine red drop of blood falling from the cuts his nails had made in his palm, hitting the floor and joining the nearest pool of dark liquid. He pulled his foot free of whatever he had stepped on, releasing a sick squelch. Nao shook off the tip of his boot, eyes still tight doors against reality.

Then he turned and fled, leaving a trail of dark footprints on the cold pavement.

Y/N's POV

The early morning fog was a comforting blanket encircling Y/N as she ran down the street, footfalls no louder than a cat's. Her 3DMG was gone, tossed into a sack and hidden. She had retrieved her cloak, and it now rippled around her, inky black, and hiding her further.

The knife, however, was not with her. It had been abandoned in her last kill's stomach, hilt pointing towards the door she had shut on her way out. Nothing but her small boot dike remained, and Y/N could feel its light pomel thumping against her calf. She turned the corner with the precision of a hunter, then pressed her body against the cold bricks, a window frame digging into her back. Y/N sucked in a deep breath in the darkness, eyes large, the moon hanging like a jeweled pendant from the stars, beauty fading as as her sister the sun approached from the East.

Y/N's breath misted in the morning air as she slid down the wall, cloak catching for a moment on a rough stone and falling back down on her head. Sniffing with disgust, she rearranged her cloak, watching the sunrise. Chimneys began to puff out thick bursts of smoke, and Y/N smiled in the dim light of the alley, picking herself up and stretching like a cat.

Y/N was pulling her hood over her h/c hair when she saw them. She froze, hardly able to think. How... how did they... Then her animalistic hardware took over and Y/N dove down, pulling her hood over her eyes, pushing herself against the unforgiving wall. For the first time in years, the hunter had become the hunted.

Cringing as her fingers dug into grime and mud, Y/N began to inch forward along the wall, trying to make herself as small and inconspicuous as possible.

I have to get my 3DMG... the thought pounded through her head, so loudly she was sure her pursuers could hear every word. Or are they chasing someone else? They weren't heading my way... still, no harm in being careful. She had reached the end of the alley. Glancing up, she made a break for it, dashing across the light-filled yet empty streets to the next hiding place.

This continued on for maybe fifteen minutes, until Y/N finally saw the familiar sack.

And an unfamiliar pair of boots planted directly in front of it.

Y/N gasped, scrambling back, hoping he hadn't seen her. But of course, he had. The boots moved forward, and a hand jerked her chin upwards. Y/N met the man's eyes, her mind instantly identifying him as Commander Erwin. Her mind also prompted her to move, and move she did.

The wind was, quite possibly, the only thing that could've surpassed her speed in this moment. Y/N was up and away in a heartbeat, one elbow slamming into Erwin's stomach, the other hand pushing herself up. She threw herself across the street, snatching the sack from beside a barrel. She frantically tried to jerk the gear free from the burlap, but to no avail. The odds and ends of the 3DMG caught on the thread, and Y/N was still struggling with it when the others arrived.

She glanced up as Erwin stumbled forward, still looking dazed from the elbowing. Of course, he had brought the best- glasses psycho, bubbly, and Levi. There had been nothing to use as a nickname for him; except for maybe living death. In short, Y/N was toast.

"Surrender." Erwin didn't seem to eloquent. Maybe I should stop wearing spiked arm rings....

Y/N laughed. "Excuse me?" But the frivolous tone was a facade. They had blocked the exits, and she didn't see a few of the Scout's most renowned members; people she had expected to want a part in the action.

"Surr-end-der," He spoke slowly, as if to a child, "There's nothing you can do."

Y/N smiled. "Well, one thing, actually. It's called escaping, and it's done like this!"

Before she had even finished speaking, Y/N had hooked the final piece into place on her 3DMG. On 'this!' she whipped her cloak off, throwing it over Levi and Bubbly, pulling the corners down, blinding and incapacitating them. Her hand flew to her boot, retrieving the dike, throwing as hard as she could towards Psycho, sending the tip of the knife through her shirt and pinning Psycho to the wall.

As Erwin advanced, Y/N ran directly towards him. When she reached him, she took his shoulders gently, looking up into his eyes and pulling him close. Then Y/N brought her knee straight up, at the same time pulling his shoulders down. Jumping over his now crumpled form, Y/N dashed out into the street.

And then they, the one she hadn't seen, hit her, quite literally.

Two hours later, Y/N was firmly bound and sitting tight in the back of a carriage trekking towards Wall Sina and the prison sentence that awaited her there.