this is how i imagine ruff in my head lol - like kinagase tsugumu
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[f]
"What the hell?!" Chi screamed as Alabaster slowly pulled the knife out of his abdomen, the blade dripping with his blood. "Why the—you're—?!"
"Relax," Alabaster coaxed, lifting the hem of his sweater to show his stomach. The wound, below his left rib cage, was bleeding for certain—but the skin was weaving together like a basket, forming a self-regenerated bandage. Within mere seconds, it was completely healed, the only remnants being the blood on his skin, sweater and the knife. "See? A-okay."
"Wh—what the—how did you—" Chi choked, staring in awe at the missing injury on his torso.
"It's all a part of our training here," Clare explained in place of Alabaster, who'd gotten up and left briefly to change out of his shirt. "Remember how Alabaster talked about how we were all raised by the elders and stuff? Well, just like the big scary titans," She paused to sarcastically roll her eyes, "we have regenerative abilities too. When we repeatedly practice the ability of regeneration, our body becomes more accustomed to it and it barely becomes a task. Almost everyone here can heal a cut in the blink of an eye. Once, Ruff accidentally lost his leg to a scientist at the FADE HQ, but it grew back in two seconds flat! I think he holds record time."
Ruff didn't avert his gaze from the wall, but his stare hardened and the hint of a smug grin was there for a second at the corner of his mouth. Rowan playfully punched the large man's shoulder, throwing Chi an exasperated look.
"It's true!" the older man agreed, nodding his head. "Ev'ryone knows that Ruff here is one o' the toughtest kinds of us Deviants."
"Deviants?" Chi repeated, cocking a brow.
"Oh, nobody told you? Makes me sound stupid, doesn't it?" Rowan chuckled and shook his head, smiling warmly. "We call ourselves the Deviants."
"But... why the Deviants? Why not the... 'Tools of Humanity' or something?"
Clare, Ruff and Rowan exchanges looks of surprise before they burst into laughter—Ruff pursed his lips to hold in his laughter and rubbed his face with his calloused palms.
"That's actually not too bad of a name!" Clare giggled, her shoulders shaking with laughter. Chi sat there with a bewildered look on her face, perplexed.
"You do realize that everyone here, every Deviant, has a will of their own?" Alabaster smiled, trekking back to the other four with a clean white shirt. "I overheard your little remark, and let me tell you, I used to think the same thing. I can see it in your eyes." He took his seat beside Chi, kindly beaming at her. "I was frustrated because I was designed to be used like a tool, therefore I was to be discarded if I wasn't useful anymore. It just didn't seem like... like there was any point in living, you know? I thought that the reason for my existence was solely to work for humanity, but when I found out that I wasn't even supposed to exist in the first place, I felt truly lost."
Chi nodded vigorously; strangely enough, his words perfectly described what she felt about her life for the longest time.
"Well, through a lot of painful and horrible training that proves to be quite useful, I learned that there is no way that anything in this god-forsaken world can force me to do something I don't wish to. Even though yes, we all share a part of the titans, in the end, we are all human too. We may not be entirely human, but even if it's the tiniest shred hidden in our hearts, we are still a part of humanity. We can do as we wish—because if you haven't realized it yet, we have our own beating hearts and working brains. It's not anyone else's. It doesn't matter why you were brought into existence; the fact is, you're here now, and you have the right to why you want to stay here."
As she listened to his words, Chi's eyes widened. It was amazing to witness these words echo inside of her head and soak into her being; realization washed over her sanity and she was overwhelmed with the feeling of it.
"...Wow," she breathed, setting down her fork. Her hands floated to her head where she grasped it, staring at her last bite of steak. "I guess I—I never thought about it like that."
"Alabaster was a real idiot back in the old days," Clare chimed, rubbing her chin thoughtfully.
"Makin' me feel old here, kids," Rowan muttered under his breath as he nudged Ruff in the arm with his elbow. Ruff grunted in agreement.
"Actually, Alabaster is the complete opposite of who he used to be only five years ago," Clare continued. "Stubborn, smart-mouthed, cold, snobby, self-absorbed—in fact, he used to call me 'idiot' all the time. Damn annoying bastard." Alabaster reached over the table and flicked Clare right between her eyebrows and snorted.
"Who said I stopped calling you idiot, idiot?" he scoffed mishievously. The pig-tailed brunette wrinkled her nose and stuck her tongue out at her friend, clicking it.
"But now, he's completely changed." Clare winked at Chi mischievously. "He's an even bigger idiot, and not only that, he's super obnoxious, too."
"You're the one to talk, idiot." Alabaster reached over again to prod the tip of Clare's nose, but she veered backwards and sniggered when he missed.
"Sounds like someone I know," Chi murmured quietly, mostly to herself. It made her reminisce and miss a certain someone even more; in fact, mentally, she declared that it was her immediate mission to find him as soon as she got out of there.
"Ooh, who?" Clare asked, leaning her chin on the palms of her hands, propped up by her elbows. "This lover of yours, right? Well—judging from that look in your eyes, it seems I'm right."
Chi flushed and tried to cover her face, but she knew Clare was right. It was most certainly Levi who inhabited her mind and made her feel as if she was going to deteriorate if she did not see him the very next moment.
"I—I have something I need to do," Chi stuttered, clearing her throat. "But before I do that, I need a full account of what happened over at the—the place where I was being held captive."
"I can do the explaining," Ruff finally spoke up. All four of them were surprised he had decided to converse, but Chi eagerly waved a hand to signal for him to proceed. "Every few weeks, we set up missions—raids—to infiltrate the FADE bases and destroy as much of the base as we can to discourage them from continuing all experiments. We also raid their archives; all of the information they have on us. The day we found you, we happened to notice that there were fewer guards than usual, which counted as a big advantage for us. We are masked people, always. We 'died' only days after being injected with the titan DNA, but we have survived through countless hardships." Ruff cleared his throat and rubbed his stubby chin with his hands. "Destroying the machinery room was on our hitlist, and I was assigned to that room. While others—" He shot Clare and Alabaster disapproving looks, "—were screwing around, I took my pleasurable time to partake in my mission."
Chi nodded in understanding, tapping her chin. "So kind of like the Survey Corps go on expeditions, Deviants go on missions?"
"Exactly. As I was saying, when I was on my way to my target location, I encountered that... that woman there, holding you against the wall. You were struggling, and it didn't look like you were going to win. Your injuries were in a horrible condition, and I'd never seen your face before, so I made the assumption that you were Subject Cero. Your eyes made me sure of your identity. Earlier that day, when Rowan and I interrogated a scientist, he informed us that Subject Cero had been recaptured and relocated to their HQ. You were the last piece of the Deviants, and we wanted to retrieve you—to free you." He pointed to himself and waved around to notion the entire room. "Although every single one of us are not free until Violet is dead."
Chi's voice shook. "So you found me and you—you saved me, right?"
Ruff nodded. "Correct."
"Violet..." Chi tapped her chin in wonder and mustered up the courage to ask a question that'd been biting at the back of her mind. "Who really is this woman? I mean, she doesn't seem... human."
"I KNEW IT!" Rowan screeched, leaping up in his seat. He held out a splayed palm towards Alabaster. "Pay up, rookie!" The younger boy sighed in disbelief and rolled his eyes, slamming a small wad of money into the older man's hand. Rowan smirked and plopped back into his seat, counting it in his hands. Chi raised a brow.
Ruff dramatically rolled his eyes. "These two nincompoops bet on whether or not you would pick up on Violet's inhumane characteristics—an idiotic bet, if you ask me—but I digress. It's best that you hear the story from Clare. She makes it sound much more interesting than I."
"You know it!" Clare harrumphed, grinning. "Well, this Violet lady, as you have noticed, is beautiful. Correct? Well—personally, I think she's as ugly as a titan's ass, but almost everyone here agrees that she's got this haunting beauty that seems to pull you in. Not to mention her strangely colored eyes and hair—who in hell is actually born with hair and eyes that are purple?!" Clare clicked her tongue in distaste. "Her strength is over ten times our own, and there's something weird about her voice—I'm sure you've noticed it by now."
Chi nodded, remembering how the woman's voice was strangely overpowering, no matter how hard she'd tried to fight against it.
"It plays with your mind and toys with your sanity; she's able to make anybody do anything she wants them to. She's practically brainwashing anyone who comes her way—which makes me wonder, she 'ought to at least have used it once on you before, right? I mean, I'm surprised you were able to make it as far as the door before you were stopped by her. Supposedly—according to rumors—there's no record of a 'Violet' anywhere; not even the Military or the government have it. Eventually it led to the theory that Violet isn't actually from anywhere within the walls; she's from the outside. Meaning, she isn't at all human; she somehow infiltrated the walls and according to many sources from FADE, she isn't creating tools to fight for humanity; she's creating tools to fight against humanity."