[TW: Mentions and descriptions of death, violence, blood, and gore. Please be aware before reading.]
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|Year 850|
The year of familiar tragedy.
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HE WAS MOCKING ME. It was the only reason Kira could think of as Squad Levi, with the help of Keiji, Abel, and Nifa, all moved to Trost in order to evade their current attackers. He had to have been mocking her. He chose to use her alias instead of her birth name or 'designated number'. Something about the letter was exceptionally bitter, and it made Kira especially suspicious.
Something was not right at the school.
He would never use 'we' to describe any type of order. In his eyes, there is no 'we'. There was only ever him, the assistants, and the products. He does not view himself as the same as the 'products'. It was his job to train the products into Targets. He was always above, never a part of. He would never write 'we'.
So who did?
The most obvious answer would be Samuel, the last Target before Kira had left. However, Targets never lasted longer than a year and a half before they were either surpassed by another student, or he took a group of them out for an undisclosed objective. The name quickly changed from 'undisclosed' to 'last' as no one had ever returned from such a mission. Yet, he never seemed upset about it. Though, it wasn't like he ever had anything to be upset over anyways.
Why her father? That in itself – saying her father would be proud – was an outright taunt. It seemed almost childish, or immature. He always held his head high, only ever bowing it to check on his ticking pocket watch. The way he taunted the student was different. He would never consider moving so loudly, as though to come out victorious. He would never try to win, he didn't need to.
Everyone knew, he never lost.
"Why do I have to wear this ugly thing again?!" Jean fumed, glaring down at the shaggy brown wig in his hands.
"Because I said so," Levi replied sternly. "The real Eren and Historia will be in the wagon that we'll meet up with later, got it?"
"Yes, sir." Eren and Historia replied in unison. Kira watched Armin awkwardly shuffle his long blonde wig around from one hand to the other, clearly uncomfortable with dressing as a girl.
Stepping forward, she grabbed the wig from his hands and smoothed out the knots within the strands, shielding some of his body with hers so he was partially out of sight from the others and so he'd hopefully stop frantically shifting his weight. Since they were the same height, she could block most of his body, but his blonde hair was still prominently shown behind her darker color. Though, she'd long noticed that people looked the other way when she approached. Hange had said something about a 'spooky aura' she emitted, but Kira decided not to look into it when she saw Moblit speedily deny whatever they said.
"Uh," Arlert gripped at the long skirt he had to wear, his face flushed and his shoulders shaking. "I-I guess Historia and I do look kind of similar."
"No," Kira denied, picking out another knot in the wig. "You don't."
"H-huh?! But isn't that the whole point? If I can't be a good decoy, then I'll make everyone fail–"
"You share basic physical traits," Kira cut in. She held the smoothed out wig in her left hand as her right grabbed Arlert's shoulder and turned him around, ignoring his high-pitched yelp as he spun around at fast speeds thanks to her strength. "They won't look for anything more than that. It will work."
Whoever was after Eren and Historia wouldn't look passed physical traits. Luckily, the only people Kira knew would look much, much deeper than the simple outline were the people who were after her. Those were the people who'd know a cheap wig from a mere glance.
"So, you don't think I look like Historia?" Kira noticed his head was tilted down before she could hand him his wig.
With the noise of Connie stealing Jean's wig from him, and Jean pleading with the ever-so-stoic Levi that he and Eren truly had no similarities, the way Armin murmured his question would've made it difficult to hear if she hadn't already been focusing on what he would say. Thankfully, Eren's previous shouting that Jean was too ugly to portray him had paused for whatever reason, and that significantly lowered the volume in the room.
"No," Reflexively, her eyes floated over every part of his body to give her a cue of any incoming outbursts of anger. His hands tightened around the skirt he wore before they fell limply at his sides. "Do you want to look like Historia?"
"Not really," He chuckled, but it sounded forced, and his head remained looking at the floor. "I-It's not something a guy wants to hear," She focused on his hands as they flexed and relaxed repeatedly before he crossed them in front of his waist. "That he looks like a girl."
Before his fingers could touch each other, Kira used her free right hand to harshly smack his left hand away from his right and he squeaked as he flinched his hand back. She quickly turned him to her while holding his forearm. Now that he had faced her, she could see the build up of tears threatening to spill over just by blinking.
"You don't look like a girl, you're conventionally attractive," Kira told him, ignoring the way he struggled to form a protest with his anxious stuttering. "While there is a clear difference in your height, your hair along with your eye color is the same and from a distance, your build is similar," She slowly let go of his forearm as he stopped trying to splutter nonsense over what she was telling him. "This decoy plan doesn't make you any more feminine, our enemies are just too simple-minded to be detail oriented."
"U-uhm," Kira adjusted the wig as Armin looked at her. "Y-you aren't good with your words." He yelped as he jumped backwards, wildly waving his arms in front of him as Kira met his eyes. "B-but! I–well," He laughed again, his smile small but genuine the second time around. "That's kind of exactly what I needed to hear, I guess."
Kira handed him the detangled wig, which he grabbed and accurately placed onto his head. Turning around as he adjusted it to sit comfortably, Kira glanced around the abandoned Trost building they stood in. Very quickly, her eyes found the unique shade of greenish-blue as he stood silently from across the room. She learned early on how rare it was for Eren to be quiet, always needing to push his own agenda onto whomever crossed his path, but he was quiet as his eyes stayed leveled with hers.
"Faith," Armin stepped beside her. Eren glanced away, and Kira took note of the shining midday sun peeking through the broken cracks of the abandoned house and shedding light on his cheekbones. Looking away with furrowed eyebrows, she turned her head to Armin, who was watching something ahead of them before nervously biting the corner of his mouth. "About Bertolt–"
"Let's move." Levi ordered, scanning everyone in the room and leaving first.
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Kira's senses were on high alert as she took to the city streets. On Levi's order, the fake Eren and Historia operation had successfully captured the amateur kidnappers that were supposedly after Eren and Historia. With the two inside the wagon, Levi had gone to meet back up with Nifa and the other long-time soldiers on the rooftops while Kira followed the carriage on foot.
The crowd was thick, still filled with the citizens of Trost who were given food rations on the King's order. Kira swiftly made her way through the people, fast enough to keep an even trail behind the wagon carrying Eren and Historia, but not fast enough to draw any outward attention by seeming as though she was in a rush.
Her hood was down, lowered to her shoulders. No one spared her a glance, and yet Kira had to resist the urge to pull it up or search for her dagger by gripping at the strings on her empty backpack.
With the slow-moving crowd, the wagon was easy to follow. The large city streets were now filled with people who wanted to return home after being served their food portions by their 'generous ruler'.
The sound of rustling paper and a clang of metal hitting the stones pavement that was quickly muffled by the murmuring voices of the citizens and their footsteps.
Her ears were sharp enough to target the direction where the sound originated from, and her mind seemed to focus harder on the sound once her brain appeared to recognize its echo.
She placed her foot onto the paper before it could wander off into the horde, but her eyes widened at the feeling of the metal underneath the sole of her shoe.
Kira knew what it was immediately. The metal, specifically soft iron, made it easier to throw since it weighed at one hundred and ninety grams each. The grip, made of a material similar to gauze, had kept it sturdy in her hand hundreds of times before.
It was an exact replica of her dagger.
The one he had given her so many years before.
Of course the particular sound of metal hitting the stone left her ears ringing until she found it. Her ears were always sensitive to the sounds that weapons made. Whether it be from the slice of a sword against a Titan's nape, or a dagger hitting the pavement. Her brain had always held a specific space for all the sounds weapons could make.
Ever since then—since her house, her life, had turned into a never ending sonata of death and decay, her mind devoured the knowledge of all things weaponry. However, one sound always had a stronger hold on her than the others. The weapon she always watched but never used.
The sound of gunfire.
She despised the weapon, but her brain made sure to store the sound of it in her mind forever. Like a broken cog that keeps jerking a machine back to its original position, never to continue, always to go over the same things again and again, her mind refuses to let go of the sound of gunshots.
She hadn't heard them in a while.
Shaking her head, Kira unfolded the piece of paper, spinning the dagger so it slid up her sleeve and out of view of the citizens around her.
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TELL ME, FAITH, WHAT WOULD YOU GIVE UP IN ORDER TO AVENGE HER?
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The note was ripped to shreds before she could reread it. It was him, it had to be. He knew the details of what took place that night. He reminded her of it whenever she held doubts about what it was he was training her to be. He was the one taunting her.
The controller of the Academy. The one who had most likely punished her bracket after she hadn't returned. The dictator of her thoughts. The figurative hand that had coiled itself around her throat long ago, when she had no other choice but to submit to its grasp. It was him who was dragging her back.
Of course it's him.
Kane.
Taunting her with the false name she chose. Taunting her by connecting with the ones who destroyed Wall Maria. Taunting her with the murder of her mother.
She must've instinctively given him too much credit on her first thought. Who else had ever treated her with such disregard?
Kira heard the end of a shout, the sound dampened by both her clouded mind and the unmoving crowd. With the street too congested from the sheer amount of citizens crowding it from end to end, the wagon was forced to a stop, and Kira grew more uncomfortable the smaller the space around her became.
There were too many people around her.
There were too many people. He was here. He knew she was here.
How could he have known she was here? Who was he working with this time?
Just how many people could he be connected to?
Kira's left hand gripped onto one strap of her backpack while her right hand twitched with the anticipation of moving her newly secured – her newly returned – dagger. She needed space. Who knew what the people around her had connections to? They could all be a part of it. After all, he never delivered letters out in the open by himself. One of them had to be an assistant. One of them had to be a product.
Her hood was on faster than she could think. The corners of her vision were covered by the thick edge, and the large number of people surrounding her dwindled out of sight.
She could breathe again.
They had a mission to accomplish outside of herself and her past. If she could get to the wagon, she could take the initiative of moving Eren and Historia on foot. With the wagon sitting still, they were a more obvious target than if they just got lost within the thick crowd.
The sound of it resonated in her ears as she froze from taking another step. Even over the now frantic, panicked cries of the citizens around her, she heard it perfectly. As though she was alone in a room, with just the sound of it playing.
It came from the rooftop behind her.
Kira barely registered the forceful shoves of the people trying their hardest to leave the area. They couldn't do much to move her anyways. Stiffly, her right hand lowered the dagger out of her sleeve and slid it into its designated strap on her right thigh.
Two more sounds from her left rang in her ears, both of them farther in distance than the first, but clear as ever in her ears.
Her hood fell to her shoulders as she stared at the ground, where multiple people scrambled all around her to find their loved ones and keep them safe. To keep them away from the sounds. The same sounds she knew like the back of her hand.
The same sounds that took her mother away.
"Kenny!"
Turning around, Kira haphazardly dropped the empty backpack from her shoulders, watching the man who brought her here, who brought her to the surface, leap off of the rooftop to fire another gunshot at Levi.
It's been ten years since she was brought up here, since her life became a cycle of cold bodies, with the first cold body she ever saw happening at the hands of him.
It's been ten years since Kenny killed her mother.
In the beginning, she submitted to it all. Young, frail, and terrified. A world without a father was the norm. "He was a good man". Her mother had told her that many times. "When he was ready for them to all live together on the surface, he'd come get them". He was honest, well-spoken, and brave.
She always bathed him in an admirable light. One that made Kira proud to have such a person connected to her. He left his cloak. Something Kira was sure he left behind so they'd never forget him, even if his face was a mystery. She'd wear it for him and show him that she, too, could also have those qualities.
She'd wear it for him until the time came where she'd give it back and, as odd as it sounded, she'd tell him that she was proud of him. She was proud of him because once she got to know him again, she'd see those qualities in him for herself, and she'd be proud to have a father like him. But until the three of them could happily reunite, her mother was her one and only guardian.
Until then, her mother was her world.
What would she do to avenge her mother?
"Faith! Support the wagon!"
She'd abandon the mission, and she'd follow after the man who destroyed her home.
She's older now. Nothing about her was frail, and her anonymous imprint she'd left on humanity so far was enough to prove that and so much more. She's strong. Strong enough to do what she should've done the moment she learned how to grip the dagger resting in her thigh strap.
Strong enough to kill the man who murdered her mother out of cold blood.
Kira was going to kill Kenny.
She'd killed most of his old team. A deep boiling of sadness had fueled her chest as she did so. She would do the same again.
Kira wouldn't be feeling that same sadness this time around.
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Levi dodged another bullet aimed at his left shoulder, spinning his body around while shooting out his left grappling hook at an adjacent building with his maneuver gear. He had a feeling everything was going to plan a little too well. After all, as smart or clever as some of the plans they come up with are, the Scouts have never been able to consider themselves 'lucky'. They were far from it.
And yet, Levi never would have expected his luck to be so fickle. Obviously he should have. If he had any other form of good will granted upon him, he wouldn't have been in this position in the first place. And he definitely wouldn't be crossing paths with the man who raised him.
The same man who left him hanging so many years prior, without any warning. One day he was present, watching with what Levi had once hoped was an expression of pride – impressed with how far Levi had come with his combat skills in such a short amount of time – and the next, he was gone.
To this day, Levi had no idea what had made him leave or if he had anything to do with his decision. The area he lived in showed no sympathy for his loss, and he moved on. A part of him thought that Kenny had died, and that part of him thinks it would be better than what they were doing now.
The other part of him wanted answers.
Where the hell is she? Levi could only watch as the wagon carrying Eren and Historia was quickly overrun by Kenny's team. The wagon Kira was supposed to be watching on standby. The woman who took over the jockey box shot Abel in the head as she grabbed the horse's reins, killing the last member of Hange's Squad. Taking a sharp left around a building, Levi shot his grappling hooks behind him so they could drag him away from gun carrying enemies in front of him.
They predicted every last one of our movements! Leaping over a carriage filled with empty boxes, Levi used his hands to continue to spring his momentum forward as his three pursuers remained on his tail. With the adjustment of the light as he passed over a street, the shadow of his old caregiver looming over him caught his attention. Kenny, Levi grit his teeth as he made a sharp right turn to avoid any gunfire. What the hell is he doing in the Military Police?!
Levi kept jumping and angling his body in random directions in order to keep the shooters from having a proper target to fire at all while sustaining his fast pace on his gear. Another shadow leapt over him, catching his attention as it went the opposite way where they could've cut him off. Looking back, Levi quickly understood the reason this shadow ignored him was because it wasn't after him, it was after the people shooting at him.
It was Kira. Aggressively slamming one of the enemies into the building they hovered over, crushing their head into the tiles of the rooftop, while simultaneously stabbing the other two in the head with her swords, it appeared as though she was headed back towards the direction of the wagon.
Why did she come from behind us?
Even without the close gunfire surrounding him, Levi moved swiftly as he shot one of his grappling hooks into a far building, allowing himself to be pulled forward and keeping watch of the open doorway as he crash-landed onto the side of the bar in the open pub.
"W-Welcome to our establishment!" The older bartender screeched as Levi pnated, balancing himself on the bar counter. He squeezed his eyes shut before reopening them as he spun around, landing quietly next to the bartender, grinding his teeth as he patted around to find the gun that all pub owners were allowed to keep.
Shit, He tilted his head back, wiping away the blood that dripped from his forehead into his left eye as he cocked the loaded gun. If this keeps up, I'll lose my team, Eren, and Historia too.
"Ain't that the damnedest thing!" Levi slowed his breathing down, whether intentionally or not, as soon as he heard Kenny's voice. "I smell a filthy rat coming from this bar. Come out ya' little rodent," He heard the pounding of Kenny's feet as he mockingly stomped his way into the saloon. "Found ya'! The law has come to exterminate the vermin! Bang! Bang!"
"The hell?!" It seemed like Kenny never lost his lighthearted joking when it came to a fight he thought he could win. Even though Levi rolled his eyes when he heard the older man pound his feet into the ground for extra dramatic sound effects, he knew Kenny had more than enough reason to be cocky up against anyone he fought. The man had yet to lose. "Ain't you in here?!"
"Right here, Kenny," Levi answered. "It's been a while. Never thought you'd still be alive," He wanted to keep him talking so he could pinpoint the location of Kenny's voice before he took his shot. "What happened to slaughtering the Military Police? Now you're one of them?"
"Adults do plenty of things a kid like you can't understand–oops, my bad. You're just so tiny, it's hard to believe you're older now." If it were anybody else, Levi would've already had them coughing up blood on the floor for the snide remarks Kenny would continuously make. However, Levi ignored that fact as he slowly reached up his left hand, spinning a random liquor bottle so the label faced the inside of the shelf and he could see the shadow of his mentor standing still.
Directly behind him.
"I been lookin' forward to seein' you in action. Never thought all those tricks I taught you would be helping ya' out like this," Kenny continued. "That other brat's got a few good tricks up her sleeve, eh? She's gotta bone to pick with me. Might kill me and my whole squad if we ain't careful enough." Levi's eyes drifted to the floor, his eyebrows crinkling. Sure, Kenny had connections. So many that, even now, Levi can't say he knows of more than a handful off the top of his head. The ones he could name were the 'pals' Kenny had from two decades ago. Knowing Kenny, those bridges have burned to ashes by now.
But how could Kira know Kenny? Not only that, but she knew him enough to hold a grudge against him?
"Didn't I ever tell you what happens to a cornered rat?" Levi adjusted the rifle in his grasp when he heard Kenny cock his own two handheld pistols. "No matter which way you try to run, you'll get blasted from above."
"Hey, Levi," The man stepped to the side, and Levi watched his silhouette grab an empty chair before casting his eyes away from the bottles as Kenny threw the chair across the room and into the stash of liquor behind the bar. "There's gotta be a reason you became a Scout, and I think I know what it is," Levi kept his eyes on the spilled alcohol and broken glass that surrounded his legs, ignoring the shivering old bartender who let out a terrified squeal before he ducked under the bar. "We had no choice but to survive in that garbage dump. It took all we had each day to keep on livin'. And when we found out how big the world really was, you can bet it hurt like hell. But somethin' saved us."
"We'd found something we wanted to do. It's that simple," Levi looked up to one of the surviving liquor bottles, seeing the blurry shadow of Kenny grabbing another chair in his left hand while his right had one of his handguns pointing at the bar. "It's simple, but the truth is–the only thing that made our lives fulfilling was finding hobbies."
"Hobbies?" Levi reached up to another bottle, turning it like he did the first one in order to get a better view of the man behind him. "So, is blowing the heads off my team another 'hobby' of yours?"
"Yup," Kenny confirmed. "To achieve my grand goals, I'll kill as much as I have to. You're no different, and neither is that other rat. You'll both kill when it benefits you."
"You keep bringing her up," Levi slowly raised the rifle to rest on his shoulder. "It's starting to make me think you have a bone against her."
"I did once," Kenny huffed, readjusting the chair in his hand. "She's just got somethin' of mine, and I was hopin' to get it back."
"Yeah." Levi replied mindlessly, swinging the rifle so that the barrel rested on the bar counter and taking a shot.
"Thanks, old man." Jumping onto the bar, Levi tossed the gun back to its owner. Running on the counter, he grabbed the last bar stool and threw it out of the window ahead of him. He waited for whoever was above him to unload both of their shots before jumping out of the window, and using the hooks of his maneuver gear to stab the assailant in the chest and throw him off the roof.
He dragged the man's body over to him as he jumped onto another roof, using the dead man as a shield while the two men on the other roof fired at him. Shooting his hooks in between his enemies, Levi reared his right arm back as the wires pulled him forward, slicing the men's throats as he passed them.
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"Hey!" Connie called out as the rest of the Levi Squad flew over the buildings using their gear. "There's Eren and Historia!"
"Isn't Faith supposed to be covering them?!" Sasha shouted.
"Captain?!" Armin questioned as they watched their superior turn into the main street, a trail of the enemy squad following behind him.
"W-what the hell?!" Jean gaped, mortified by how a person was shooting at another person. His eyes wavered unwillingly as he watched his captain drag the person to him and slice the man's stomach open with his swords. The swords used, and made specifically for killing Titans.
"Chase the wagon!" Jean gulped as Captain Levi gave the order, and he could feel a bead of sweat drip from his hairline down his cheek at how easy his superior barked out the order.
"Yes, sir!" Mikasa confirmed.
"Listen up!" They followed Captain Levi around a corner, trying to pick up their pace to close in on the captured wagon. "They're used to fighting other people! They already got three of ours!"
"B-But, wasn't Faith supposed to secure the wagon?" Connie interjected. "That means–"
"If we're gonna get those two back, you can't hesitate!" Their captain cut off, facing forward and dismissing the inquiry altogether. "If you get the chance, you kill! Got it?!"
"Roger!" Mikasa responded with little hesitation.
When multiple shots sounded from their left, the group prepared themselves to evade or fight on Levi's order. To Jean, it seemed as though the world around him was moving slower. He could hear his breathing echo in his own ears, and his eyes refused to focus on one specific thing at a time. He couldn't tell if he was either going to choke on excess saliva, or if his throat had been too dry to begin with. Everything was mushing together.
Everything was too loud.
A scream of pain reached his ears, and his eyes finally focused as Faith entered his line of sight. One of humanity's greatest mysteries, mostly heard of but never seen. Everything about her was inexplicable. Hell, her face and voice was a deeply secured secret for years.
He'd never believed in her. No matter how many times Eren would rave about the soldier, shouting about getting closer to her – or something. Even when some of the people in the town he grew up in, the same city they were fighting people in now, people made their bets on her. Meeting her almost didn't make sense. It was like everyone's words and folktales mixed with Eren's schoolgirl fan-screeches became personified. She was shorter than he'd once imagined, and he also didn't take into account that Faith would be a girl. Even still, it was only after she finally spoke to them that Jean viewed her as a real person.
He would've never guessed she went to school. In Wall Sina, no less. He never thought about her having family, or even a significant past. To be honest, when he once did think there was a possibility that humanity had found such a strong soldier, he was grateful. Grateful that he really could follow his dream of becoming a lowlife Military Police soldier just for the money and housing. Grateful that someone else could take care of the guaranteed death of the outside while he rested and ate well every night.
He was grateful that he wouldn't have to put his heart into doing anything other than living his life in luxury, because another soldier already carried the weight of fighting for humanity.
But, his dream life of luxury had long passed after the horrible truth of unbeatable death came knocking on his door and killing the first friend he ever made. And the soldier who was supposed to fight for humanity, was single handedly ripping off the arms of another person right before his eyes.
It was almost animalistic in the way she gruesomely stabbed her second sword into the sternum of another person, swiping upwards and splitting their upper body in half without so much as a pause to think – to care – about what it was she was actually doing. To Jean, another truth had revealed itself.
The soldier who carried the weight of bringing humanity to victory, hated the same people she protected. She would slaughter them like she massacred the beasts living outside the walls.
She executed them like they'd wronged her.
"Jean! Armin!" Captain Levi shouted. "Secure the wagon!"
"Another dead."
"Jean!" He hadn't realized he was speaking out loud until Armin called his name, leading him down to land on the back of the wagon as Sasha swooped down and kneed the driver in the face.
"Don't move!" Jean raised one of his swords to the woman's head, his voice and hands trembling as he pointed the sharp edge between her eyes. He felt the violent crawl of bile rise up his throat when his eyes connected with hers. At this moment, no matter how repulsed he was by Faith's actions, he longed to have the same drive. To be able to feel nothing when taking a life, as if having done it so many times before.
He wanted to be like her.
He wanted to be heartless.
"Jean!" It happened so fast. One second he was standing above the woman and in the next, she had one of her guns aimed at his face.
A moment after that, her blood splattered onto his hands.
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"What the hell was that?" Kira watched Armin heave over the side of the wall that connected with the stream, where boats pulled by thick wires would move from one wall to another. She turned to Levi, watching stoically as his stern eyes glared at her. "You were supposed to keep watch on the wagon. Those shits wouldn't have gotten their hands on Eren or Historia if you did what you were told."
"Probably." Kira agreed. She allowed Levi to grab her bicep, dragging her to the side of the building they had secured when they first captured the amateur kidnappers.
"You're not special," His kick was hard enough to have her body hit the wall next to her, but Kira didn't do much to block it in the first place. "You're given orders just like everyone else, and you follow them. You don't get to abandon the team because you want to."
"How do you know Kenny?" Kira stepped away from the wall, brushing the debris that came from her connection to the wall off her shoulder.
"You don't get to ask questions," Levi dismissed. "You tell me how you know him, and what the hell made you go insane out there, and then you can sit down and keep your mouth shut until I give you something to do."
Kira remained silent. She had Kenny's trail. Where he was, she was one step behind. Yet, her one step behind was just too slow when it came to a person of his caliber. He escaped before she met back up with the others, and she didn't make an attempt at getting to the wagon before Kenny's last teammates rode off to wherever they had planned to take Eren and Historia.
"If you'd done what I said, Abel wouldn't have his corpse splattered on the streets," Levi muttered, standing beside her and leaning his back against the wall with his chin tilted to his chest. "Wasn't it him almost dying that made you talk in the first place? Such a nice way of repaying the man who inspired you to raise your voic–"
"Do you want me to apologize?" Kira's left thumb inserted itself into the side of her middle finger as she stared straight ahead. Levi casually shrugged his shoulders.
"He said you have something of his–"
"He's a liar," Her voice was firm, quiet and steady. She turned to Levi, whose left eyebrow was raised in an effort to challenge her to continue. "He took from me. I'd never keep anything of his." She looked away, gazing at the far away city buildings and her hands clenched into tight fists.
"He raised me," Kira kept quiet, biting the inside of her cheek as Levi spoke. "Left me high and dry a couple years later. This is the first time I've seen him since then." When she turned to him again, it was Levi who was watching the buildings with his arms crossed in front of his chest.
"It was him and his old team," Kira told him. "He brought me up here. He needs to tell me why he targeted my house then, or why I was chosen."
"He's never been good with answers," Levi pushed himself off of the wall. "He likes leaving the people who know him hanging."
"Then he'll die quietly." Kira replied instantly.
"You want him dead more than you want answers?"
"I won't be patient enough to wait for them." Levi scoffed at her answer, clicking his tongue and nodding his head in the direction of the side entrance door.
"Could've fooled me." He responded, sarcasm dripping from his tone as he led both of them through the door.
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"Jean, there's something I don't understand." Kira sat in between Levi and Mikasa on an empty wooden crate.
They'd waited for the sun to set. After sending out an update for Hange and Moblit, who were going to visit Erwin in his confinement, they had to wait. Their next bet would be to question Dimo Reeves, owner of the Reeves Company, who partnered with Kenny and the Military Police, and could have a lead as to where they took Eren and Historia.
"What's that?" Kira glanced between the two boys across from her. Armin trembled, his hands shaking as he held a ration bar up to his mouth, but unwilling to take a bite. Jean looked worried, guilty almost, as though he knew what Armin was going to say and knew beforehand that he wouldn't be able to give a real answer.
"When I shot that gun to save you, I honestly thought I wasn't able to make it in time," Armin lowered the ration bar, his unblinking eyes staring blankly at the stone floor. "Sorry but, why was I the one who shot first?"
"That's–"
"Because the other person hesitated," Levi cut in, interrupting Jean. "It's true."
"Armin, I'm sorry," Jean clenched his jaw, leaning forward as he squeezed his eyes shut. "I should've done what I had to do."
"I know what it is," Armin hung his head as his voice reached Kira's ears in empty whispers. The person that I killed–I bet they were a nice person. Someone that was much more human than I am."
Kira watched his posture intently. His reaction – the entire One-o'-Fourth's reactions – to killing was so weak. They reacted like Kira would think someone their age would, like she would if she wasn't already surrounded by death. She wondered what it would feel like to be able to react to something like that. So childishly. The more she hung around her new squad, the more she wondered what it would be like if she were more normal in that way, even if the world they live in didn't allow such fickle things.
"Armin, you've got blood on your hands now," Levi stated blandly. "You can't go back to who you were."
"Why would you say that?!" Mikasa countered, though Kira couldn't find a logical flaw in Levi's words.
"Embrace the new you," Levi continued. "Just think, if your hands were still clean, Jean wouldn't be here right now," Finally, Armin's gaze raised from the floor to look at his captain. "I'll tell you why you pulled the trigger: because your comrade was about to die. Armin, thanks to you getting blood on your hands, nobody on our squad ended up dead. Thank you."
"Captain Levi," Jean began nervously. "I thought it was wrong to be fighting other humans, and wrong for you to order us to do it. I was afraid to be hurting other people but, I'm the one who was wrong. Next time, I'll shoot."
"I never said anything about who was right or wrong. I don't even know myself," Levi corrected. "Are you really the one in the wrong?" With a sigh, Levi stood up. "It's about time we hear what he has to say." Kira stood up next, and the rest followed as Levi walked first, pulling away the gag covering Dimo Reeves' mouth.
"Wait!" He cried, his body shivering. "I'm just an old man used for moving the wagons they gave us around the–"
"I've met this man once before," Mikasa cut in. "In the city, people were calling him 'Boss'."
"Yeah, I know," Levi said, looking down at the man bound on the floor. "Dimo Reeves, right?"
"We were just following the orders the Military Police gave us, and we failed big time.The Academy'll surely plunder the Reeves Company for all it's worth," Reeves reproached. "They won't stop at me and my dumb son, they'll make sure all my employees die in so-called 'accidents'."
"So you'll die without a fight?" Levi asked, attracting the man's attention. "Trost should have collapsed by now, but it's persevered. That's because the Reeves Company brings people and work together. But if the company was gone for good, just how few would survive the winter?"
"Are you suggesting I team up with you?" Dimo questioned.
"We just need to know where Eren and Historia are," Levi answered. "If you're supplying the Military Police, we can figure something out."
"But can you stop my city and employees from dying of starvation?"
"I can't guarantee it," Levi replied, kneeling down to see the man eye to eye. "However, you can trust that we'll move towards that end."
"I'm just the middle man," Dimo sighed. Levi stood up, turning the man so he could untie his hands, allowing Reeves to untangle his own legs. "The Academy and the Military Police have worked hand-in-hand for years. I was just giving them extra, older-model supply wagons since the school hasn't made a new model in five years."
"Why not?" Kira pressed. The man stood up slowly, wiping his hands on his pants, before reaching into his jacket pocket. On instinct, Kira retrieved her dagger from her side, flipping it into her grasp and pointing it at the man's throat while he pulled out his hand from his coat.
"Wait!" He shouted, shakily holding out a folded piece of paper. "This is for you." Kira glanced at Levi, who was already watching her. He nodded at her to take the paper, which she followed immediately.
"Do you," Reeves cleared his throat, bringing a hand up to nervously rub at it as he looked away from Kira. "Do you have a plan?"
"Like I said," Levi reiterated. "We'll figure something out."
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"That cloak–I remember you," The Military Police soldier croaked as he woke up from being knocked unconscious. Kira stood in front of him, with Levi on her right. A small shelved table was placed on her left a single candle giving the dark room a dim glow. The only other light came from the ceiling windows, where the glow from the moon peeked through the cracks. "You didn't come back with the rest of your bracket. We assumed you were dead."
"Go upstairs to the others," Levi said, tying the top of the apron around his neck. "Hange and Moblit will be here soon with more information," Kira said nothing, nodding at Levi and turning to exit the room. "Oi," Kira paused from opening the door. "Don't throw that note out until I get to read it. You should start getting used to telling us everything you know."
Kira closed the door behind her and almost as soon as she took her next step, she heard the screams of Djel Sannes echo through the hallway as she walked up the wooden stairs. They probably didn't have to wait long for Hange and Moblit to arrive, seeing as they were definitely in a hurry to retrieve Eren and Historia.
She opened the door at the top of the staircase that led to the second floor, where the rest of the Levi Squad sat at a table to the left of the door Kira came in from. Mikasa stood by a wooden pillar closest to the door. Armin sat by himself on the left side of the table while Jean, Sasha, and Connie all sat across from him on the other side.
Aside from Mikasa, their eyes were wide and their complexions pale as Sannes' yells reached their floor. Kira walked around the group, sitting at the seat across from Connie, and leaving an open chair in between her and Armin. She could tell from the way they all looked close to coughing up their last meals that they wouldn't want to speak. Neither did she.
The unopened note was in her left thigh strap, waiting to be read, but Kira was already confused. The main reason the school was never searched was because of their high-class appearance. They made high quality products that sold for fortunes, and kept the nobles of the Innermost Wall happy. A newer model was always in production. It was a part of discipline.
Why hadn't they made a new one in five years?
"How?" Jean asked, and Kira looked over to see him already watching her. His clenched fists rested on the table, before he took them off the tabletop and placed them on his lap. "How can you be so calm? How can you take the lives of other people without thinking twice?" He chuckled, but he was clearly angered as he grit his teeth. "How can you be so heartless?"
"Practice." Kira replied, not liking how she found his description of her upsetting. She was emotionless. That was what made her successful. She was selfish, strong, and emotionless. Long ago, she questioned whether or not she was even human because of her lack of response. Maybe Jean had worded it perfectly. Maybe she is heartless.
"The Academy. Is that where you went to school in Wall Sina?" Kira turned to Armin, who kept his eyes on the table, as his weak voice reached her ears.
"Yes."
"The same one that was confirmed to have been assisting the Military Police for years?"
"Yes."
"The Kane Academy for Crafting Prodigies?" Kira kept quiet, disliking hearing its full name said out loud, but her silence was answer enough for him. "So it's true then? It has to be. You were one Bertolt and Reiner were looking for." The rest of the table's eyes shot to her at Armin's conclusion, uncertain –frightened – looks in their eyes.
"Yes." The table went quiet again. Even though she didn't need to explain herself to them. Even though she didn't want to explain herself. One look around the table, the tense posture and thick silence, made Kira bite the inside of her cheek. She definitely didn't like how she wanted them to look at her differently. To see her as another one of them. To see her as normal. To not see her as heartless.
Why did she want to fit in with them?
"The person at school who is looking for me had connections to Hoover and Braun. I didn't know the two before they came to the Scouts," Kira told them, seeing each of them turn to look at her. "I don't know how they get their connections."
"Why leave Wall Sina?" Jean asked. "Why leave the life of luxury?"
"Living in luxury without oppressing others is impossible inside the world we've created," Kira answered. "It was never real to begin with. I left because I didn't want to do that anymore."
"So a spoiled girl from Sina ran away because she didn't like being rich?" Sasha tilted her head upwards, and laid a finger on her chin. "Eh? That came out really rude."
"Wait," Connie cut in. "You can make a table from scratch?"
"No," Armin shook his head at the other's assumptions. "It's like she said: 'It was never real to begin with'."
"So, what did you really do there?" Mikasa spoke up. Kira glanced around the table again. This time, the other's shoulders were sagged. They were more relaxed than before without their avoidant eyes and crossed arms. It interested her, how quickly they could change from defensive to open. It was so childish and naïve.
So normal.
"I learned how to be heartless."
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"The true royal successor is Historia?" The Levi squad stood in line facing Moblit, Levi, and Hange as they were given the news of what they'd received from their captured soldiers.
"In other words, both Eren and Historia are likely to be wherever Rod Reiss is." Hange confirmed, turning to Moblit as he nodded and placed a drawing of a man with a top hat on the wall.
"That's him." Levi said, addressing the picture. Hange gestured back to the table in the corner, and Kira sat back down where she once was. Sasha stood behind her to her left, Connie sat in between Kira and Armin, with Mikassa leaning against the same wall beside a wooden pillar. Jean sat across from Armin, and everyone listened attentively as Hange filled them in on the information they'd received.
"So, from what we can gather, Eren will be eaten." Hange sighed, adjusting the glasses on their face.
"Eren—will be eaten?" Armin repeated, shocked.
"Yeah," Hange confirmed. "Eren remembered a conversation between Bertolt and Ymir which suggests that Ymir was once a Titan wandering alone outside the wall. Bertolt, Reiner, and Annie had a comrade that she ate," The thick silence between each of Hange's statements showcased how stunned the rest of the group was. "When a Titan eats someone, they don't change back into a human. But, what if a Titan ate one of Reiner's comrades? They're humans who can transform into Titans. In other words, if a Titan eats someone with that power, they revert back into a human. Furthermore, they obtain the power of those they eat."
"In the other day's battle, Reiner was throwing Titans at Eren, who had escaped. Eren has the power to control Titans with his scream. He was trying to snatch that power using those Titans," Kira's left eyebrow raised at the mention of that day. "In that case, Eren is just a vessel who is bound to be replaced. If the government has a Titan of their own, they'll be the one to eat Eren." Kira turned her head as Mikasa pushed herself off of the wall, storming to the exit when Levi stopped her by placing a hand on her shoulder.
"Calm down," Levi ordered. "As we've seen, even if you do go on a rampage, they're not going to give Eren back to us." Kira rolled her eyes, but the truth in his words was clear. Even so, thinking back on that day – the day she, of all people, had been protected – it made her bite her inner cheek. To think, after that, after he told her those foolish words, promising to protect her life like it mattered to him. To think, she would leave him when he needed the favor returned.
She truly was so selfish.
"Anyways, we head for the lands of this 'Rod Reiss'," Levi turned to the other members of his squad after Mikasa had listened to reason. "Get ready to leave at once," Kira followed after the others as they stood up to leave, each of them exiting the room. "Not you." She was stopped before she crossed Levi, his firm hold on her forearm stopping her from taking another step. Once Sasha had closed the door behind her, Kira turned to the other veterans and pulled the paper out of her thigh strap when Levi held out his hand.
"Have you read it yet?" Levi asked.
"No." Kira watched Levi give the paper to Hange, who unfolded it while Moblit and Levi read the note over their shoulders.
"Kira," She watched the three of their expressions carefully, her eyes making note of when Hange's eyebrows furrowed. "What does this mean?" Taking the note from Hange's hands, Kira read over the words herself. Her expression fell blank as she read it a second time, and then a third, before returning the note to Hange.
"It means I don't really know who's after me."
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FEELING LIKE ABANDONING THEM YET?
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Next Up: Chapter Twenty Five - No Time To Breathe
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Note: Whoever said that having two jobs while continuing school would mesh well with my writing was a damn liar! I'm so so extremely sorry for the wait! I really thank you guys so much for reading, commenting, and (hopefully) enjoying!
Season Three's chapters are going to be long! You have been warned, lol! Get ready for lots more Kira+104th bonding! It's finally time to have them really spend time all together.
How do you like the further unraveling of Kira's past and her connection with Kenny so far? Any theories?
I'll see you guys next time! Thank you so so much for being so patient with me and my story!