Her damn willfulness — somehow, it was still catching him off guard. She had the right answer but the wrong extreme. Given her sudden zeal, it seemed certain she understood the importance of staying to search, but it would be stupid for her to go alone. Too dangerous. Too easy for her to be blindsided, grabbed and killed, as he had nearly been.

"Step one is cutting her off from everything she knows and putting her life in someone else's hands."

It took Erwin's steady words in his head for Levi to recognize the opportunity. Not like before, when they'd saved each other in the heat of battle. That was a natural instinct — certainly for him, and for what he knew of her. She'd saved people; he'd gone over a particular report from the battle for Trost, when she'd rescued a group of civilians that were bottlenecked at a point of escape.

But what did that nuance matter? Levi could let her go, then wrench her from the jaws death at the last available moment as a kind of harshly-designed lesson, but would the result be worth the gamble? In the brief moment he had, before she went strutting out the door, he decided to err on the side of caution.

"Sit down," he said, "and finish eating. I told you we'd deal with them, but there's no reason to do it now. Those ugly shits will still be there in the morning. If you've got that much energy, then you can take first watch."