Attack on Titan Fanfiction – Bladesmiths & Librarians: Chapter 9

The Disconsolate

Gustaf Schreiber was born into an Eldian family in Marley, a typical impoverished household: his father was a porter and mother a laundry woman. Despite the humble beginnings he turned out to be an intelligent, quick learning boy who did very well in the village school. In fact, he did so well that he grew into an ambitious young man with dreams of becoming a published author. His field of specialty was ancient literature and the languages they were written in. While Eldians are, as a rule, not allowed to attend university in Marley, Schreiber was so clever and talented the Marleyan principal of his school, Hans Froebel, gave him a recommendation to his alma mater. He graduated from the national university with summa cum laude highest honors, but of course he wasn’t awarded it officially because the university found it offensive to award it to an Eldian.

After graduation he worked all kinds of teaching and tutoring jobs, hiding his real identity, and wrote pieces for magazines and journals under a Marleyan pseudonym. Selina Merkel, grandmother of one of his Marleyan pupils, found out about his talent as a writer and decided to recommend him to the university where she taught. He was accepted as a lecturer, under the condition that he hide his true identity. The head of the Department of Literature recognised his talents and wanted him to provide free editing and ghostwriting services to the department, in exchange for making him part of the faculty. With a proper job at hand he married his childhood sweetheart, and they have two children. 

He labored in the university as a lecturer and pro bono ghostwriter, and as his internal reputation for excellence grew he was given greater responsibility. Soon he was doing the work of a full professor, but with the meager salary of a lecturer. 

When he finally mustered the courage to complain, the department head told him coldy, “You’re lucky we’re giving you this job. You may be brilliant, Gustaf Schreiber, but that doesn’t change the fact that you’re Eldian scum. Instead of complaining about your salary you should be coming in every morning to lick my boots. Be grateful for what we’re giving you.”

The reason he wanted a raise was not just because of the unfairness of doing far more than he was paid to do, but because his beloved wife had fallen with a mysterious illness that the local Eldian hospital didn’t know how to deal with. Schreiber wanted his wife Marlene to be treated at the best hospital in the capital. But it cost a lot of money: money to pay for the medical services and money to bribe the hospital to treat an Eldian.

At that time Schreiber had been working on a book for seven years. He decided to send the manuscript to the large publishing houses in the capital, but because Marleyan society was deeply segregated, every manuscript sent had to include an official form filled out with the author’s national ID number, which identified citizens based on their race. From the outset it would be revealed he was Eldian. All the publishing houses returned his manuscript unopened and unread. He tried the smaller publishers but was met with the same cold shoulder. Desperate to earn enough money for his wife’s treatment, he ended up where poor people in dire need of money end up with: the local mob and their loan sharks. 

A man he was casually acquainted with, the owner of a local fish market, became his bridge to the mob. The man, known to everyone only as “Salvatore the Fisherman,” saw him one day at the market looking ghastly and without his wife. Some friendly chatting from the large, florid man with a booming laugh and Schreiber found himself unburdening.

“You need to bribe the publishing house. That’s the only way you’ll get them to look at your manuscript,” Salvatore advised. 

“I haven’t got that kind of money,” Schreiber admitted glumly.

“Tell you what, I’ll lend you the money, from a friend to a friend. Your wife Marlene has been a loyal customer at my fishmarket for many years. It’s the least I can do,” the businessman offered generously. “You can repay me with the royalties from your book sales.”

It sounded too good to be true, but Schreiber was desperate. So he took the money offered, bribed the largest publishing house in the country, and got his book published under his Marleyan pseudonym. It became an instant, continental bestseller. He earned enough to have his wife treated at the best hospital in the capital. It turned out she was afflicted with a rare genetic disease that could not be fully cured but made much better by the latest medical advancements. Marlene Schreiber recovered and they were one happy family once more. 

But when he tried to pay back Salvatore in installments plus interest, the kind, friendly man refused. “Ah but you should relish your success, dear friend! You don’t need to pay me back in cash. Instead, why not spend your earnings on better education for your two boys? With a brilliant father such as yourself, aren’t they wasting their potential in that shabby parochial school? They should be educated at the best institution our country has to offer!” he suggested in a very seductive, convincing manner. “As long as you do me a little favor every now and then, your debt I shall underwrite! From a friend to a friend!”

Again, it sounded too good to be true. But the lure of giving the best education for his two clever little boys was too much for Schreiber to refuse. Finally he had the chance to afford his children the schooling he himself wanted but never got due to his impoverished Eldian background. He bribed the finest boys’ academy in the capital and got his children enrolled. 

All the while he was teaching at the university and writing his next book. Salvatore, true to his word, never demanded cash payments. Instead, he expected Schreiber to do him ‘little favors’.

“It started with a small package, handing it over to some stranger at a designated time and place. And then it became larger boxes to keep at my house for a certain period. Afterwards, it became people I had to hide…”

Before he knew it, Schreiber was neck-deep in classic mob activities: racketeering, illegal drug trade, bid rigging, loan sharking, smuggling, illegal gambling, money laundering, firearm trafficking, vote rigging, fraud…

“I knew I was in very big trouble, but my second book was also a bestseller, and I thought I could finally convince Salvatore to let me pay him back in cash and have him free me from my ‘duties.’ But I was flatly rebuffed.”

Being a professor at a respectable state university, and looking like a run-of-the-mill, quirky but harmless academician, Schreiber quickly became a prized errand boy. It was hard to be suspicious of him because of his appearance and gentle manner. Unwittingly, he had become a valuable asset to Salvatore. The man refused to let him go.

And then one day, his youngest, Rudi, fell gravely ill. It turned out that he inherited his mother’s genetic disease. But unlike his mother, who was an adult and had the strength and energy to recover, the little boy was too weak to fight. He had to be kept in the hospital not just for weeks but months. 

The cost of the treatment took its toll. They ended up mortgaging their house, and their savings reached rock bottom. He took out his eldest, Max, from the private academy and homeschooled him to keep living expenses as low as possible. He took three side jobs to supplement his meager university income, all the while working on his third book.

Unfortunately, the book didn’t do as well as the other two. It was a modest success, but not enough to tide them through desperate times. That was when Salvatore offered him the trade of a lifetime: he would keep the little boy in the hospital, underwrite the cost of it all. In exchange, Schreiber will go to Paradis as a spy. His mission: find out the location of the ancient Eldian castle bladesmith clan.

---

Levi listened to the entire tale of woe. It wasn’t new to him. He himself was a former gangster. He’d heard and witnessed similar stories before: the poor desperate for money ending up with all the wrong people. There were many variations to the story but they all ended up the same: very badly. 

“But how did you find out? There were no written records of the clan. They were a state secret in every sense of the word.” Levi demanded an explanation.

Schreiber explained his sleuthing methods. Having earned the trust of Queen Historia and the twins, he began finding out their detailed schedules. A year before the war with Marley, he found out that the queen was going to visit the blacksmith villages along the western river. It was deemed as a routine royal visit–the queen always visited villages around the island as part of her job–but Schreiber found out this particular visit was special. Why? Because Levi was going with her. He figured it out when he overheard the Lord Chamberlain and the Captain of the Musketeers arguing over the security team. 

“You always accompany the queen, Walter. Why aren’t you going this time?” The Lord Chamberlain was upset. They spoke in low tones but Schreiber hid behind the heavy drapery and was able to catch what they said.

“I’ll stay with the twins today,” the Musketeers captain insisted.

“But you have to go with the queen. If anything happens to Her Majesty…”

“Orders from above, Ernst. Two of my Musketeers will be with the queen.”

“But you’re the best among them. That’s why you always have to go.”

The Lord Chamberlain looked so distraught that the kindly captain said, “Don’t worry too much, Ernst. Someone even better than me will accompany the queen. Her Majesty is in good hands.”

The queen had already visited the villages along the north, east and southern rivers but it was only the Musketeers that accompanied her, not Levi Ackermann himself.

When the queen returned, Schreiber, who by now was the main tutor of the twins and had become friendly with the rest of the royal household, visited the queen’s horse in the stable along with the twins. They were going to have a lesson on the anatomy of horses, he told the stable master. Schreiber then scraped off dirt from the horse’s hoof, which he analysed in Hange’s lab under the pretext of mixing the perfect soil for the library flower pots. He found two mineral elements in the dirt that could only be found at the mouth of the river, deep inside the forest. How come the queen ventured that far? Schreiber surmised that there was a village there, an obscure, hiding-in-plain-sight village that people have all but forgotten. 

To corroborate, he snuck into the queen’s bedchamber, under pretext of finding the twins in a hide-and-seek game that he himself suggested. He peeked inside the queen’s diary, filled with detailed notes about the twins’ growth and progress: the words they said, the questions they asked, what food they liked, the new things they learned and eagerly told her about. It was like the children’s diary of every loving, doting mommy. The difference was that the queen’s was filled with pasted and glued “finds” from Lily, budding botanist and naturalist. A heart-shaped twig, a leaf with an interesting pattern, a pressed flower with an unusual shape, a four-leaf clover, blades of grass with unconventional coloring, even the gossamer wings of dead insects that she found during her garden explorations. Each of these the queen carefully added to her diary pages. 

On the day Queen Historia visited the western river, all she wrote in the diary was about her children, as usual. But there was a tiny, purple flower pasted on one corner of the page. Schreiber, though not a botanist, knew that the flower was very rare. He had never seen it before, neither in Marley nor Paradis. He burned the image of the flower in his mind. The following day, he searched the Natural Museum archives and found that the flower was indeed extremely rare, endemic to Paradis, almost extinct, and could only be found on the western side of the island, deep in the forest, by the mouth of rivers. In that moment Schreiber knew: there was something in that part of the island that wasn’t on the official maps. 

When Salvatore demanded information, Schreiber passed it on. 

“But that was more than a year ago, before the war with Marley. Didn’t they do anything in between?”

Schreiber shook his head. “Salvatore took the information and told me to keep doing what I was doing: winning the trust of the royal family.”

Levi quickly figured things out. The mob behind Salvatore didn’t want to risk entering the island during peacetime, so they timed their arrival to coincide with the post-war chaos. But then the mission failed. 

“Did they kill your wife and children immediately after learning the mission went bust?” Levi asked.

“No, Salvatore told me I wasn’t being blamed for it. But he gave me a new mission, which I had to refuse,” Schreiber explained. The tears started to fall.

“What mission?”

“To hand over the twins to the two remaining assassins.”

“You refused and Salvatore had your family killed.”

The librarian nodded. He was crying now. “I couldn’t, Levi. Anything, anyone but the twins. I just couldn’t…I love those two like my own.”

“So you decided to exchange your own children’s lives for theirs.”

“Yes,” Schreiber said, in the saddest, most bereaved, most heartbroken voice a man could ever utter.

“Where do I find Salvatore the Fisherman?” Levi demanded.

Between sobs Schreiber whispered. “He’s dead. He was blown up via car bomb four days after I made my repudiation known. The next day his wife and child were also killed off, plus two of his employees. It was staged as a gas leak accident.”

“Did you know who was behind Salvatore?”

“If I knew, Levi, I’d tell you right now,” Schreiber said, looking at the other man through a veil of tears.

Levi sighed heavily. He knew Schreiber was telling the truth. Every contact Schreiber’s had so far with the mob was through Salvatore. Salvatore was his handler. Schreiber was one of the man’s agents. Levi knew that agents–their term for spies–were kept in the dark. It made things simpler. Agents were usually ordinary, untrained civilians. They were easily caught and tortured, either by rival mobsters or the police. An ordinary civilian under threat of torture will talk before a hair on his head is ever touched. The less he knew about the chain of command, the less he knew about the real nature of the operations he was involved in, the safer the ones who pulled the strings became. 

“The assassins, they didn’t come for you?”

“They did. After they learned of my turning down the new mission, they came to my room at night. They didn’t want to just slit my throat, however, as a murdered librarian would be suspicious and they didn’t want the police investigating. So they forced me to drink a lethal dose of cinesra. In very small doses it has medicinal properties. It would look like an accidental overdose.”

Levi stared at him. “And you survived it?”

“That morning on the same day I left a note at Hange’s office, saying I planned to take a subtoxic dose of cinesra to help with my sisaipros,” he explained. Sisaipros was an autoimmune disease characterized by abnormal patches of skin. “I didn’t want Hange to think I committed suicide. If I were to die, I wanted them to think I made a mistake with the dosage and died by accident. I wanted them to know that I died but not willingly.”

“Founder Ymir in fucking Paths!” Levi swore under his breath.

“I drank the poison, but right after the assassins left Hange arrived with the antidote. There are currently no known antidotes, but Hange created one that very day. They were livid that I was self-medicating. And then they moved me to the lab so they can monitor my recovery. Hange saved my life.”

The brigadier simply sat there and stared at the librarian.

“When the assassins returned early in the morning to check on my dead body, I wasn’t there. That day you posted Special Forces operators on all government buildings, including the library. So I returned and they haven’t come back since. But they figured I was still alive. A week later this box was delivered to the library.”

Levi pressed his fingers against his temple. A headache was forming. “Good thing the assassins are no longer around, but now I’ve no leads left. I need to know who was behind the whole mission. I need to know who financed it. From what you’ve told me, Salvatore the Fisherman sounds like a local mobster, but there has to be someone even more powerful behind him because of the amount of money a mission like that required,” Levi explained his case.

“I wish I could help you. But I decided to remain as ignorant as possible about the machinations behind the mission in hopes that I’d feel less guilty of the consequences…”

The silence stretched as they both stare at the skulls.

It took Levi a long moment to speak.  “Why didn’t you tell me?” he demands. “The Special Forces could have secured the bladesmith village and taken the assassins alive; at the same time I could have infiltrated Marley and rescued your family.”

Schreiber shakes his head.

“We’ve infiltrated Marley twice before. We succeeded. You helped us with the recon, you gave us intel,” Levi points out.

“But that was only to gather information. It didn’t involve rescue,” Schreiber shakes his head again, explaining, “Salvatore was a clever man. When I refused to hand over the twins, he figured out I had turned, and moved my family from house arrest to maximum security prison. There was no way even your elite Special Forces, despite your experience and skills, could have penetrated that prison. It’s rumored to be where the old government used to do their Eldian genetic experiments. At present, the prison is said to be leased to a private contractor. It’s the most secure prison in all of Marley. Even I haven’t the vaguest idea where the prison is located. It’s top secret, too confidential it would take years of intel to find.”

“Even then, you should’ve told me, you worthless idiot,” Levi insists, stubbornly. “We could’ve figured something out.”

Schreiber held his head between his hands. “I knew my family would be killed one way or another, but I had to tell myself it was the price I had to pay for all the wrong decisions I made in my life.” 

Levi’s head was swimming. “You should’ve given me the fucking chance to come up with a plan.”

“If the Special Forces infiltrated there’s a possibility you’d have died in the process,” Schreiber points out. “I can’t allow that.” 

“Since when did you start caring for my sorry ass?”

Schreiber chuckles sadly. “When Erwin died, Hange said that a significant part of them died with him. And then when Moblit died, another huge part of them died. You’re the only one left of the three most important people in their life. I know how much you mean to Hange, Levi. If you died trying to save my family, what’s left of Hange’s heart will die with you. They would have nothing left. It would completely devastate them. You really do mean that much to Hange.”

“I wasn’t going to fucking die,” Levi growls. “You underestimate my abilities in a manner I find insulting.”

“I’m sorry, Levi. The risk was too much to take. It’s not only Hange. If anything happened to you, the queen’s armour would be greatly weakened. You know how her structural reforms are inciting rebellion from powerful quarters of society. Her Majesty thrives because of Ackermann protection. It’s imperative that the Ackermann shield be strong and impenetrable. Queen Historia has the popular mandate, but it’s Mikasa–along with her husband Jean–commanding the loyalty of the greater part of the military, and you, Levi, holding the merchant guilds in the palm of your hand, that gives our queen the protection she needs. A chink in that armor…” Schreiber shakes his head.

Levi has fallen silent. He merely sits, arms crossed, staring at Schreiber. 

“And the twins…” Schreiber continues, sighing through his tears, “I live for them.” He glances at Levi. “They ask you each time, don’t they? ‘Tell us about our father’.”

This time it was Levi’s turn to sigh, but says with a trace of fondness in his voice, “Yeah, them royal brats…”

“I could only tell the twins what I know from researching their father’s biography,” Schreiber continues. He was in the process of writing Eren Jaeger’s official biography as well as children’s book. “But they want to know from people who were comrades of their father’s. It’s different, I understand that.”

“Hmph,” Levi grunts gloomily.

“There are so few of you left who’ve fought alongside Eren Jaeger, who knew him personally. The twins need your presence, your wisdom, your guidance.”

“You make me so goddamn disconsolate,” Levi says, getting up and walking toward the picture window behind Schreiber’s desk. He clasps his hands behind his back and gazes at the city succumbing to nightfall.

“Anything royalty-related makes me fucking disconsolate,” Levi affixes. 

“You Paradian Eldians take Her Majesty for granted,” Schreiber bristles. “You don’t appreciate how fucking lucky you are to have Queen Historia as your monarch. She may be cold and ruthless at times but she’ll willingly lay down her life so that we pathetic pieces of dung can live just a little longer on this horrible, shitty planet.” Gustaf was surprised at his own sudden potty mouth, but he blames it on Levi. Really, the man was a bad influence.

Levi shoots him a look, eyebrows raised, himself taken aback by the sudden crassness of the usually well-spoken librarian. But the brigadier remains silent, so Gustaf continues. “I worship the ground Queen Historia walks on. Her Majesty has a heart of gold. You lot ought to appreciate her more.”

Levi concedes, “Fair enough.”

They fall into silence once more.

Finally, the soldier faces the librarian and asks, “What made you turn?” He had mostly figured it out by now, but wanted to hear it in the former spy’s own words.

A long pause. “Three reasons, I must say,” Schreiber starts. “First, the queen. She rescued me, many times. During the darkest, saddest moments of my life on this island, she stretched out a friendly hand to me. Her kindness…I have never seen nor experienced anything like it before. She believes in people in a way that make them want to become decent human beings. She’s inspiring, life affirming. Her Majesty is hope personified. She has the power to turn any spy.”

“Hmph,” Levi grunts to indicate he was listening, but not necessarily agreeing.

“The second reason was,” Schreiber’s voice breaks, “…you know who.”

“Here,” Levi says, placing the piece of paper with the incriminating poem on the man’s desk and pushing it toward him. “You keep your poem. Give me a new copy of the glossary page. No more rogue poems at the back, understood?”

Schreiber nods in compliance, taking the piece of paper in both hands and staring at it with heartbreaking sadness. 

“I still don’t understand why you can’t tell Hange.”

Schreiber puts the the piece of paper down, holds his head in both hands. A stifling air of dejection hangs in the room. 

“I can’t tell them, Levi. I sacrificed my wife and children. My love for Hange is tainted with the unthinkable. My love confessed would be a burden, not a joy. They would have to bear my love along with the death of my family. The price I paid to be able to worship the queen, to be graced by Hange’s presence, to contribute to Paradian education…” Schreiber shakes his head in sorrow. “I paid a heavy price.” 

What a fucked up, stinking, shitty world we live in, Levi thought.

Schreiber, now sobbing, continues. “I must not burden Hange, Levi. They already carry the weight of the world on their shoulders. They will never forgive me if they learn the truth. Nothing I do or say can atone for what I did to my family. I do not deserve forgiveness from anyone, least of all Hange.”

The misery, the mourning, the grief in his voice was so thick you could cut it with a knife.

Long moments of silence stretch between them. Finally, Levi speaks.

“The castle blacksmiths. That’s state treason. You get hanged for it, you know.” 

“I have blood on my hands, I know. I cannot express in words how sorry I am,” Gustaf hangs his head in shame. “Go ahead, Levi. I deserve to be hanged. Now that I’ve told you everything, I can welcome death with open arms. I do not deserve to live.”

Levi sighs, a deep, heavy, tortured sound only someone who has seen too much and knew too much can make. He remains silent for a long while and then, “Nothing you said tonight leaves this room. Understood?”

The other man could only nod his salt-and-pepper head.

“From now on, you fucking tell me everything or I’ll strangle you myself.”

“I will,” Schreiber replies. He returns the other man’s gaze. “Thank you, Levi.”

The brigadier heads for the door. “Know one thing, Gustaf. I will never forgive you for what happened to Clan Schmitz.”

“I know. I don’t deserve your forgiveness.”

“Good night,” Levi says, putting his hand on the door knob.

“Levi,” Schreiber calls out softly. “The third reason I turned…was Jürgen Schmitz.” The librarian adored the child, planning to officially adopt him, wanting to raise him. Between him and Hange they looked after him. Jürgen warmed to them both in return. 

Giving him a hard, uncompromising look, Levi says, “I forbid you to die, Gustaf Schreiber. Live and spend the rest of your pathetic life as the unforgiven, forever seeking redemption. I suppose the only way you can atone for your sins is to look after the boy whose father you  helped to kill.”

“I understand. When he comes of age, I wish to tell Jürgen the truth. My greatest wish is that he kills me himself, with a blade forged by his own hands.” 

Levi stops, turns his head to look at the poor, wretched, miserable librarian, at the three skulls in a row on his desk. No words left to say. He closes the door behind him.

What a fucked up, stinking, shitty world we live in.

---

“You alright, boss?” One of his men glances at him in concern.

“I’m fine. Need a goddamn drink, though. Make that five.”

“On you, boss?” they inquire as they head to Nicolo’s tavern.

“Sure. Tonight I wanna get drunk as fuck!” 

“Well, boss, that’s a bit of a problem. Seen you chug an entire keg of beer but not get wasted for even a minute. Next day you were up and about early like nothing happened.”

The other subordinate joins in agreement. “True dat, boss. Saw you down four bottles of heavy wine, one after the other. It was like drinking water. No matter how much you drink, sir, you just don’t get tanked.”

“But I want to get drunk,” Levi grouses. “I do try…”

His operators clap him at the back. “Leave the getting drunk part to us, boss!” they say cheerfully.

Levi sighs as he is reminded of another one of his special abilities: the inability to get inebriated. 

What a fucked up, stinking, shitty world we live in.

That’s it for this story. Thank you so much for reading! Please please please take a moment to say hi in the comment section below. It’s so lonely and discouraging to find out I haven’t got any readers. Your comments are the only way I know my stories are getting read. Even just one sentence from you will give me the encouragement I need to keep on writing. Feel free to use a pseudonym and dummy email address. Please say something—anything at all—just to let me know you’ve finished reading. Comments do mean the world to me—THANK YOU. xoxo, hana

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