tw: mentions of molestation, assault and planned murder
"Let's get our weapons ready, and go to Shiganshina."
***
Maybe, just maybe, I glimpsed a look in the raven's eyes.
Ever since his birthday, ever since I had learnt of his past at midnight, there'd been something lingering behind those irises of his. Something, like the look of remorse or a sense of doubt that hung around those sapphire eyes of his, though I could never quite figure out what caused such a subtle negativity.
I glanced at him as we rode home from Trost, his horse carrying him a little further ahead of the rest of us. He seemed indifferent but I knew that wasn't the case, and I'm sure he knew I sensed it too. I considered asking him about it multiple times, but pushing someone to spill information that wasn't wanted to be recalled was never good, therefore I never urged him to tell me what was on his mind. But whatever it was, it clearly bothered him, and I intend to find out soon. How? Not sure, but all I can do is hope he'll share what's on his mind and if he shuts it down, I'll leave it at that.
Connie and Sasha both asked Eren questions about the mission, expertly avoiding any type of increase in volume due to Hange's presence being amongst the squad. Eren did his best to answer the questions, keeping detail minimal but satisfactory which seemed to keep their curiosity at bay. Jean, Armin and Mikasa all just listened in, Jean trying not to make it obvious that he was eager to hear all about the task that happened just a few hours prior. Armin added his own questions, also mindful of his volume to avoid an information overload from the glass eyed brunette who rode beside the raven ahead.
She didn't have any clue as to what the conversation behind them was, which was admittedly better for the squad. Hange spoke to the raven who looked as though he didn't mind her company, likely keeping his mind off whatever it was that lurked in his head.
"Say, Y/N, how long have you been in the military for?" Connie asks, effectively gathering my attention as I pin my eyes on him in surprise.
"How'd this conversation come up?" I ask with a grin, watching as the boy thought about it for a while. He opened his mouth like he was about to say something before closing quicker than it opened, turning to the squad so fast I was surprised he didn't get whiplash.
"How did we come to this topic?" He asked, Jean snickering on his horse while Sasha and Eren rolled their eyes.
"We were literally just talking about who had been in the military longer out of the Captain and Y/N, and I told you it was Y/N but you refused to believe me," Eren replies casually, closing his eyes for a few long moments before opening them and facing forward again. Connie turned back toward me with haste, surprising me once again with his resistance to whiplash.
"That's right! How long?!" He exclaimed, the sudden increase in volume gathering the attention of the Captain and the Section Commander just ahead of us. I recall many memories from my time in the military, from when I first joined the Cadet Corps, to my first expedition, to capturing the original trio from the Underground, my time in the Garrison regiment, the fall of Maria, the breach of Trost and so on. Everything felt like it had happened yesterday despite most of it happening literally years ago.
"I think I've been in the military for about twelve years now," I answer unsure, soon hearing Hange hum loudly from the front.
"Correct! We've been in the military for the same amount of years, but get this," she turned in her saddle to face the squad with a little more enthusiasm in her movements. "Y/N here is responsible for Levi's capture from the Underground so without her, we likely wouldn't have good ol' Shorty here with us today!" Levi's look of curiosity dissolved and turned into a deadly glare aimed directly at the woman who soon began explaining a terrible version of the raven's capture, the kids practically shouting questions at the three of us.
"You never told us this!" Eren exclaimed, and to no avail it seemed as though no amount of hushing the squad will have any effect.
"I didn't think it was important," I shrug nonchalantly, catching the raven's eyes on me with a bored expression. I raise my eyebrows at him with a lighthearted expression, shrugging once again with a little more subtlety than before. He rolled his eyes before raising a singular eyebrow at me, flicking his gaze between Hange and I as though he asking me to shut her up. I screwed up my face a little, the squad still throwing questions around hoping for someone to answer them. I huff after a little moment, opening my mouth as i avert my gaze from Levi.
"If you all behave for the next, say, two weeks, I'll tell you everything about Levi's capture," I suggest. I practically felt the wind from how most of their jaws dropped open at such an unbelievable offer, face suddenly burning from all of their eyes burning through me.
"That is the most unrealistic suggestion I've ever heard," Armin replies shortly after the words had left my mouth. I roll my eyes, a small grin creeping across my features.
"It got you all to shut up for a few seconds, did it not?" I ask, watching his lips press together; a small indication he wasn't going to protest any further. I turn to face Hange, who only sat in her saddle looking all innocent, raising an unamused eyebrow. "And you know for a fact that Levi's capture isn't spoken of so lightly," I remind, her hand rising and waving at me dismissively.
"Yes yes, but they're the Levi squad! They were going to find out sooner or later!" She whined.
"My old squad didn't know," Levi muttered, almost like he didn't want anyone to hear. Hange's gaze snapped to him, mouth falling open.
"You never told them?!" She exclaimed and the raven rolled his eyes.
"Why would they need to? Why does this squad need to know?" He countered with a bored tone. It was Hange's turn to roll her eyes before she turned to face forward again.
The conversation continued to be that of a carefree one, but in those sapphire eyes an ache remained.
***
Headquarters was quiet later in the evening. I found myself sitting at my desk two hours after dusk, staring blankly down at an empty report lit by flickering candlelight that I needed to fill out regarding the mission in Trost earlier that day. My eyes read the same words over again, a section below the question I read but couldn't process staying empty. Hand tightly holding a pen, fingers quivering with an edge I couldn't shake. Levi's expression played on my mind more than I'd like to admit, and to say it bothered me was an understatement.
The pen fumbled from my fingertips and clattered to the wooden desk, the heels of my hands reaching up and burying themselves in my eyes before my fingers raked through my hair. Something so supposedly small such as that shouldn't play on my mind as much as it did, almost like I needed to share whatever emotion he was feeling himself. A way to say he wasn't alone.
"What are you doing to me?" I mutter aloud, forming a wall made of my forearms on my desk and dropping my head on to them. I let out a low groan of irritation, soon hearing the doorknob twisting without a knock to acknowledge an incoming presence. With a huff, I look up, resting my chin on my forearms, my figure staying hunched over in my chair. The door swung open, revealing the very man I had been worrying about for however long now. I straightened up a little in his presence, pushing off the desk minimally as my gaze trailed after him. Stepping into the room, he made a point to close the door and then turn to face me, though his eyes remained glued to the ground below.
"I..." And yet, his voice trailed off. I furrow my eyebrows, obviously concerned for whatever he was trying to say. "I didn't tell you everything," he mumbled, raven locks falling over his eyes as he tipped his head forward a little more in defeat. I try humming, a coarse breath rumbling through my throat in a weak attempt to concede.
"About..?" I urge, tone hushed and even a little fearful. My eyes catch his jaw tightening at my simply said word, head jerking to the side as he raised his gaze to where the ceiling met the wall. Jaw still tensed, his lips parted and he allowed a breath to slide through them.
"The past," Levi murmurs. He still stood in the middle of the room, the air now thick with a heavy sense of morbidity and despair. My heart sank at his expression. Empty, but oh so expressive. Without even looking at me his eyes spoke a thousand thoughts, and that sight alone scared me. I took the inside of my cheek in between my teeth, elbows shifting back toward me as my hands found the cloth of my sleeves.
"Lee-" I begin but he was quick to shake his head, halting my words before I even got to say anything. And still, he refused to meet my gaze.
"No, I want to tell you. As much as it hurts to speak about it," he murmurs, stepping forward and lowering his gaze back down to the ground. The raven sat himself down in one of the chairs across from me before he leaned down on his elbows and took his head into his hands. He threaded his fingers through his hair, I remained silent with my thoughts filling the audible void. Was there anything to say that would be deemed appropriate enough for the moment?
"I told you about myself and Farlan," he began. "But Isabel's past wasn't an easy one, it took her months to open up about it and I'm surprised she was the way she was after everything that had happened to her." My heart dropped and I already felt my eyes begin to burn. Isabel, whom I had always seen as a girl who was so... carefree, also had a dark past behind her.
"Levi please, if it hurts too much to say-" My gaze dropped to the desk, my hands grasping on to my sleeves in a death grip now.
"It may be too soon to dump this all on you, but if I wait any longer I may never tell you at all," Levi's voice was hushed. Hurt, even. But this was the trust I wanted all those years ago, back when I first met them. In a career path as crucial as this one, trust is nearly a necessity when it came to close comrades. Perhaps this was a good thing.
"Alright," I whisper, silently demanding the tears keep themselves back. "Talk to me." And he took a deep breath, raising his head a little to spare me a brief pained glance before he averted it just as fast.
"She was fourteen, happened about two years before Farlan and I came into her life. Just like many people in the Underground she sought supplies and living necessities in ruins, alleys and dumpsters," his voice was even, but I could hear how much it wanted to break. "It was the wrong place at the wrong time, she happened to be searching a ruin for some things when four men appeared. Of course she was only young and significantly smaller than them, there was close to nothing she could've done physically." I feel my heart pound in my chest, my fear only growing when it felt like it was going to erupt from it.
"So she resorted to trying to negotiate. Peacefully offer them the place for them to scavenge for themselves and she'd be on her merry way, she had always been the type of person to prefer peace over violence," Levi took his lip in between his teeth for a second before continuing. "Verbal agreements were looked down upon by most people in the Underground, some people let you off. Others aren't so kind, and she received the latter. Isabel begged when they had her cornered, pleaded they let her go. They laughed." They laughed. A fourteen year old girl pleading, and they fucking laughed.
"They..." He trailed off before picking his voice back up. "They forced themselves onto her. All fucking four of them, four grown-ass men taking the innocence away from a defenceless child, breaking her. Leaving her mentally and physically scarred for the rest of her life, and yet from the moment she met Farlan and I, she was so lively. So emotionally unkempt in the best way for a girl her age, with a past such as hers." I hadn't noticed it but my jaw hurt with how hard it tensed. Fury, grief, despair rushed through my head I was beginning to feel dizzy.
"She cried when she first told us that part of her past, and the best thing? Amidst it all, she caught their names. Two years later, their names had engraved themselves in her head, and since then they had engraved themselves in mine." He scoffed, leaning back in his chair. "Kurt, Lothar, Kiefer and Florian. So I tried hunting them down after Isabel had fallen asleep."
"Tried?" I interrupt swiftly. "Meaning those worthless pricks are lurking around down there with their lives still in them?" My eyes left the desk and rose to meet his, he was already looking at me. "Tell me, Levi. Tell me, are there any people down there with the same names as these walking dead men?" His short-lived silence that followed answered both my questions.
"Mon Coeur, don't you-" He started before I huffed a little and leaned back in my chair.
"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't go to the Underground and hunt them down myself," I demanded, watching his eyes widen slowly. If he answers with words that I deemed satisfactory, I'd leave it alone. If not, I won't be sleeping until I have the blood of four more men on my hands. His eyes searched mine for a shred of falsity, but I was so fucking serious about leaving for Sina soon. With soon being tonight. He stayed wordless for the longest few moments, his lips parting for a beat before he pressed them together again, jaw tensing.
"You'll take me with you," he says. I shook my head.
"Absolutely not," I return quickly. He clicked his tongue as he straightened up in his seat, a glare passing through his eyes.
"I wasn't asking you, Y/N. I'm telling you I will be going with you to kill these fucking bastards whether you like it or not," he argues back. I bit back another reply, a story such as that one already had such hold on me and altered the way I wanted to spend the night. A story such as this one had been playing on Levi's mind for far longer than it had on mine. Killing these sons of bitches would be more satisfactory for him than it would for me.
"When do you want to leave?" I ask him, pushing myself up from my chair and stepping around the desk. He stood from his own chair, watching me move to my bedroom door.
"You're actually going to do this?" He asks, moving into my room after me, the light from the candle lit on my desk casting his shadow over everything in the room.
"You think I'm going to leave a bunch of fucking shit heads like that walk free after committing a heinous crime such as that, while Isabel lays without her fucking life in her? I've never been more serious about anything in my life, Levi," I spit, feeling my blood boil at the thought of these men. "Did she have descriptions on what these men looked like?" I begin rummaging through my wardrobe for some clothes. Black, easier for blending in, a hooded unmarked cloak to hide my gear.
"She gave me vague interpretations on their appearances, I'll explain on the way to Sina," he says. I was about to close the wardrobe door before something at the bottom caught my eye. Within the shadows cast by my being and the clothes that hung above it, ashy white peeked out. I blow a breath out, leaning down to pick it from its resting place. The mask I had bought from Ehrmich the same day I aged one year. Maybe, just maybe hiding my identity was for the best. A soldier with the reputation of killing people didn't sound good, and I know citizens would recognise me. I could only hope Levi had a way to keep his identity guarded as well. I placed the clothes and the mask on my bed, closing the wardrobe and sparing the raven a glance. His eyes stayed on the mask, questions obvious as they ran through them. But his mouth never opened to utter one.
"Fifteen minutes and I'm going," I declare, unbuttoning my shirt. I was far too angry to care about Levi's presence, and he'd seen me without a shirt on anyway.
"Meet you by the stables in fifteen then," he replied casually before turning and walking away. The sound of my office door opened and closed, my eyes pinned to the mask. I got dressed in less than five minutes, pulling the cloak over my shoulders, securing my gear to my hips and putting my hair in a style that wouldn't get in the way if I had to move quickly. Picking up the face accessory, it felt heavy. Too heavy. Murder wasn't right. It never will be right.
Or so I thought until this very situation. Having killed people before, it was for survival at the time. This time? For vengeance. Gripping the mask, I pull the hood over my head and leave the bedroom, blowing out the candle and disappearing from the office.
Tonight, we kill.
On her behalf.
***
HIIIIII, YES YOU ARE IN FOR VENGEFUL LEVI AND SUNSHINE NEXT CHAP! BLOOD WILL BE INCLUDED 👹
anyways, this is a birthday gift from me to you! I LOVE releasing new chaps on my birthday, feels like such a gift when i wake up to comments and votes fro dozens of you 🤭
your fav author (ahem, me (jokes 💀)) is 20 now! making me feel older every year stg 🤧
HOPE YOU ALL ENJOYED 😚😚
AISHITERUUUUUUU!!!
jazz<33333