Once Hated - Levi Ackerman

Tree

"Hey!" His monotone voice rippled in space. I snapped back into reality, looking up at Erwin.

"What?" My eyes shrinked from their widened state.

"Let's go, brat." Levi scoffed, opening the double doors of the office.

"Please, don't cause trouble." Erwin's sincerity was fairly certain. I couldn't promise that, as I wanted to make Levi angry, like he always is. A laugh grew out of me.

"That's funny. Now, bye." I sternly replied, walking out of the office, following the charcoal hair.

Silence was flooding the area, suddenly, I heard a racket from across the hall, seeing a sign above stating it was the mess hall. I peered through the opened doors as we passed by, seeing a ton of cadets eating and drinking together, laughing and smiling. I huffed to the sight.

Levi and I finally stepped through the doors to leave the building, and entered an area that seemed almost like a large field of rubble and dirt with a small, rundown wooden shed by a patch of trees. "This place never changed."

"Stop mumbling and let's get to work." Levi ordered, standing in the middle of the arena.

"Ok, then what do you suppose we do, pet." With enthusiasm on "pet" his eyebrows furrowed, scrunching down in hate.

"How about I teach you a lesson on disrespecting your superior?" He retorted, lifting a brow.

"Try me." I smirked. The only thing I liked about Levi was his fighting techniques and style, he's a challenger that I'd like to crush.

"Fine then." he huffed, sprinting quickly towards me, me realizing his speed was high.

I saw him pull his elbow back, getting ready for a punch, but I quickly spun on the balls of my feet to dodge the attack. My hand lifted itself, then pushing it towards his neck when he tucked his body, dodging that aswell. My eyes squinted when he stuck his leg out of his balled state, then spinning to kick my ankle. I almost fell, but swiftly regained balance. I saw him slowly rise from the ground, causing me to react quickly. I leaned forward in attempt to tackle him, but he rolled out of the way, then dashing for my position. In his attempt to punch my face, I pushed my arms up, allowing him to bruise my forearms. I then lifted my leg to kick him in the groin, but he grabbed my ankle, pulling my body towards his. My eyes widened as I saw his hand lift itself to punch my stomach. Stopping this would be difficult, might as well hit him in the process. I swung my arm vigorously, then launched it towards his face as his hand dug into my stomach, knocking each other down on the dirty ground.

I coughed, gasping a little for air as wind escaped my lungs. Levi stood up, not even gripping the blue bruise that formed at his eye. After a few more coughs, my body regained stregnth, standing up in front of his.

"Next time, it won't be that easy to take me down, pet." He made it clear that he disliked the word "pet", or maybe the way I phrase it.

"Determined are you, Monti." Levi didn't smirk at his remark, nor show any emotion. I scrunched my eyebrows at the name he called me.

"Whatever, let's get this training over with. I can't deal with you." I spoke, wiping the dust and dirt off my black clothes, they weren't the uniform that everyone else wears, but at least they were dark, almost like the colour of the dirt.

"Tch. In that last fight, you lacked something. When you attack, you don't think of the possibilities of others countering them." I can tell he struggled slightly with his words. He didn't want to give me advice, nor did he want to be in my presence for that matter. "You're so open! You can't be that stupid to not see that." Anger finally peaked within him, according to his words.

"Well, I actually can see that. I'm not that stupid. Now do what bushy brows said! Tell me how to fix it!" I blurted furiously, breathing increasing at my rage.

Levi scoffed, showing me demonstrations of the times I was too open to him during our fight. My eyes studied the movements, trying to think of how I can do it with my own muscles. I didn't praise him for fixing my issue, it felt more like I was using him for my benefit to increase my hand to hand combat. I continously worked on the same moves, fighting him in the process to see if I improved. I hated this, I hated him.

"You improved, now that's it." Levi huffed, breathing to gather his air back from our multiple fights.

I gasped greatly, taking deep breaths. "That's it, good." I saw him cross his arms and start leaving the arena, allowing me to be alone. "I guess he's not watching me being a goody girl, so I can do whatever I want." I murmured to myself, smirking in freedom.

I took steps forward towards the patch of trees, then passing by the shed. Out of curiosity, I wanted to see what it was that drew me to this place. Pushing branches and leaves were tiring, not to mention I just finished training. That was when I saw an empty circle with a large tree placed in the center: no flowers, no leaves. That's when I realized, this was where I used to go.

FLASHBACK

I walked with the food in my tray, heading towards the only empty table in the mess hall. As I walked, someone besides me lifted their hand, swatting the tray down in front of me, causing the food to fly on myself and on the ground. Everyone laughed and smiled to my torture.

"Oh, you want to go?" I snarled, balling my fists. The boy smirked, turning his head to his food.

"Your just a pathetic girl who got her father killed and can't even find a place for yourself." His head spun back to look at my angered green eyes. "You don't belong here." His words stunned me for a moment as a flicker of memory popped in my head.

"You don't belong here." My parents said in unison.

"So what! I'll kick your ass!" I shouted, lifting the collar of his shirt, getting ready to punch him when I heard the doors open to the mess hall. This caused me to drop him and continue to clean my mess.

"You can't even keep your word." He mumbled.

"Hey, Nadette! What happened?" Hange broke out, running to my side.

"She dropped her tray." The boy pronounced, going back to eating with his friends. Hange helped me clean what was left on the floor.

"Thanks." I spoke as she left the mess hall, me standing at the door. I felt a fire grow within my chest that needed to be released.

I ran forward, dashing out of the building with no tear drops, but anger building up. That boy reminded me too much of my parents, bringing me down as everyone else did in that room. My dashing eventually ended up to a dead tree, towering over the rest with beautiful green grass surrounding it.

"I'm back to my safe place." I ran full force to the thick trunk, punching it with as much force that I could pull, causing my skin to crack open, bleeding at the cuts.

FLASHBACK END

Feeling drawn to it as always, my feet dragged along the shining green grass from the burning sun. My body collapsed in front of the trunk, laying down on my back just gazing, gazing up at the blue sky not even worrying about anything. This place, this tree, for some reason drowned my worries, calming me down.

I gripped the soft grass, feeling the place I used to run to for help, as I didn't have parents, I didn't have friends. Those aspects of life never ever appeared in my life. I was always alone, always angry, always tortured, always knowing that I wouldn't belong anywhere, but to the hideout I dug in force.

My eyes fluttered as the sun passed my vision so quickly, time flying past my own senses. I actually smiled from something so little as this, something that didn't involve others' pain. This was a real smile, a real gleam that expressed on my face as I lay there. My eyes felt heavy, blinking to the white and bright stars in the sky. My body never stood from this spot, but I fell asleep underneath the dead and tall tree that didn't belong in the ring of small and beautiful green trees.

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