Heya!
This is a HUGE project I am starting right now. Translating 291,934 French words into English? That's gonna be one HELL of a challenge but I'm ready to do it. I've read the whole story and it AMAZING. I wouldn't have accepted to traduct it if it wasn't so I really hope you guys will like it as much as I did.
I'll release chapters as fast as I can but as you probably all can understand, life tends to be hectic in ways that are sometimes out of our control so I won't promise anything. However, I'll try really hard to release AT THE VERY LEAST one chapter a week, and more if I can.
Enjoy :)

( By Yra on AO3) Chapter 1/47

Chapter 1: When the Hooligan meets the Little Beast (part 1)

This world is a dunghill

To hell with all the poets and nature lovers.

Reality is much more pragmatic. Abandon all hope of one-day finding beauty in this race. Humans are animals. Unfortunately, they're animals smarter than average. They have an amazing way of twisting words to their advantage, rationalise evil to justify injustice, keep an impeccable appearance, and use the persuasive power of numbers to their advantage, making humans the only species that can be harmful to the environment, fauna, flora, and humanity itself. Mankind is a plague. The most virulent one ever created. Humans are constantly evolving but they remain the same. Inhabited by the same passion for life and primal selfishness that allowed it to prosper and colonise every part of the globe.

If the world is a dunghill then Mankind is its fungus. It consumes it, destroys it from within and ingests it to grow and build. That is, until the ecosystem that allowed it to grow eventually collapse on itself, exhausted. And then it will return to nothingness.

That was how the 15-year-old Levi Ackermann saw the world. Hopeless. Dirty. Dark. Disappointing. A world on the brink of implosion, where only a fierce, selfish desire to survive, despite everything, dominated. Whoever wanted the most would get the furthest. That was all.

"Hey! Levi! Another round!" Levi slowly looked up at the man, Earl, who swayed dangerously even while holding himself on the bar. The teenager finished quietly wiping the glass he held carefully between his fingers (he wouldn't stop polishing until he could see his reflection in it) before saying slowly, "No, Earl. That's it for tonight. Your guts are already filled more than the whore's vagina who makes the hustler on the thirteenth avenue. Go home."

"What!? Who are ye to tell me what I gotta do, huh kid!? Who d'ye think ye are!? I gonna ... I'm gonna ... " Earl had knocked his pint against the counter and pointed a trembling finger on the teenager.

Levi barely raised his eyebrow, "Just a small reminder: You break something, you pay for it. Same rule for everybody. Even though Kenny might like you, you'll pay. So, maybe you should watch out..."

The man stuttered." Ye little shit…"

Another regular, far less drunk than Earl slid an arm under the armpit of Earl and pulled him away from the counter ''Easy Earl! Have ye forgotten what happens to those who piss Lev' off? D'ye wanna end up in the hospital? Come on, let it go, mate. Let's go somewhere else." The second man Dragged Earl away without letting the other complain.

Levi quietly resumed his polishing.

As far as the teenager could remember, he has always lived in the slums of the city. Both his father and his uncle were members of the most vicious and feared gang of the capital (and of the country). The kind of man that was always missing. Men he had only seen once or twice in his life. Why did they come? Because of his mother. She was sick and had only recently received her diagnostic. The men tried to decide which one of them would take care of her. In the end? They said Gena was perfectly able to take care of herself for the time being and they left.

Levi's mother was both mentally and physically weak. The poor woman had never truly been able to take care of him or herself. Levi had therefore grown like a weed, feeding on the leftover foods left at his door by one of his uncle's friend. The man probably did it in exchange for a service or to pay a small debt. The child grew up with all the mud and spit that the locals threw at his face every time he took the decision to leave their shabby apartment to go get some fresh air.

Eventually, their tiny room in ruins became his whole universe. And at the centre of it was his mother.

His mother was not a bad woman. Levi would often talk to her when she found an ounce of sanity or when her pain was low enough that she didn't feel like screaming obscenities at her son all day. It was she who had prevented him from behaving like stray dogs, even though he often fought them over stale bread. His entire world was centred around her... until she let out her last breath. He spent a whole week with her slowly decaying body until his uncle's friend foud out about it.

With the death of his mother, Levi's world collapsed for the first time.

His uncle Kenny Ackermann suddenly reappeared to bury his dead sister. He was alone, which could only mean one thing: his father had died too, and Kenny was his last relative. At that very moment, Levi's life flipped upside down.

For the better as well as for the worse.

Kenny never had the intention to take care of the kid. There wasn't ANYTHING paternal about himself (he wasn't even sure he was human, so a father...) and he had other things to take care of (he did have one hell of a busy job). It could also be specified that he was at the very least 150% responsible for the death of the boy's father (what do you want, he didn't choose his work ethics, now did he?). But when he came to bury the cadaver of his late sister (peace to her damned soul, you poor ignorant, you were far too innocent to live in this world) he faced the most pitiful five-years-old he had ever seen. Levi was indeed pitiful but... he had inherited his eyes. The Ackermann's eyes, dead and soulless. Blue-gray, a steely gaze. The eyes of a demon. The same eyes that Kenny had himself as a child. It was then that Kenny decided to take the brat with him.

Caring for Levi was by no means a hard task. Levi was not a difficult child. Hell, he may have not even been a child at all. Even when the boy had come to understand, and in the worst of ways, what was his uncle's job (Exterminator. No, not rats. Rather, let's say, by contract. People who hadn't paid their debts, troublemakers. Kenny was good at that game.) Levi did not blink or flinch. He simply watched the corpse with dead eyes, the way you look at a rock on the side of the road.

The incident happened on a night where Kenny had brought his dead-weight along (yeah, that was Kenny's nickname for the boy) to take care of a little problem. The motel in which he would have had to abandon the kid cost at least two long nights of good drinking ... and you see, he was many things, but he wasn't the kind of monster that would leave a five-year-old in a shabby motel for three days straight...

After seeing the latent potential of his nephew for his profession ("Those who aren't bothered by a bloodbath shall one day bathe in a sea of corpses" Great-grandfather Dixit Ackermann) Kenny finally took the decision train the kid in the hope of finally having either a "comrade" or at the very least a somewhat skillful underling to replace him on the days when he'd want some rest (there was no real vacation scheduled in his profession, so it wouldn't hurt to give himself the luxury of a good time's rest if he had the chance, right?). Kenny had thus taught the kid as Kenny's father would have had. He taught Levi to survive in all circumstances, to have the will and the strength needed to take anything he wanted straight out of people's pocket, be it women, money, fear, power, food, riches in all kind.

Levi had been an excellent student.

So, excellent that Kenny had taken a liking to this little moth.

Affection and all that crap messes with a man's mind, doesn't it? For Kenny, it was the end of it all. His life of crime and debauchery. His devotion for the gang, even though it had been more or less strong, simply faded away... The gang was already falling apart, though, beaten and replaced by a younger gang. A more vicious one, and a stronger one. The Titans. Lucky for Kenny and Levi, the Ackermans were as known in the area as the Grim Reaper. It was even said that they were its worthy heirs. It easily explains why nobody ever tried to get in Kenny's way when he decided to open his own bar. it became a neutral territory where important matters were discussed (information, alliances, declaration of wars between gangs as well as peace treaty...). Kenny had somehow found a way to lead a somewhat peaceful and normal life amongst the rats of the city. Levi was ten years old.

It doesn't mean Levi became a good boy, though.

However, from then on, the boy received education. And he always kept himself clean (he was bordering on manic but it was better to not tell him that or else you'd risk losing all your teeth). His education didn't stop him from forming his very own gang in less time than it'd take for a starved man to drink a glass of water. With a blond named Furlan and a redhead named Isabel he had taken possession of several blocks of the neighbourhood at the age of twelve years and had control over ALL the trades going on at those places. The kids, of course, took a percentage of the profits (Farlan was certainly a very bright kid, one of the "Whoever wants the most will get the furthest" kind of people).

It took two years before the great Titans took notice of Levi and his little games. When it happened, Kenny had to use every ounce of influence he had to save Levi's life after the boy went on a killing spree to avenge Isabel and Furlan (the young Ackerman had succeeded him to decimate a third of the Titans fighters present in the capital).

Levi's world collapsed for the second time.

It then took the arrival of director Erwin Smith for Levi to find a semblance of stability. Fresh out of the most prestigious schools, the young police chief offered Levi a new way of getting rid of the Titans.

Education. Justice. The light.

Kenny could never have done better. So he let this tall bizarre blonde with his empty azure eyes take care of the brain (or was it the soul?) of his nephew. Levi then found a group in which he felt like he belonged, the rookie's brigade. Also known as the Freedom Wings. An entirely new project created by Erwin Smith to fight against the alarming crime rate in the country. Its first objective was to make the capital safer by using the most dangerous and brilliant young criminals the country had to offer. they would be educated and given an another chance in life. Levi then somehow managed to make some new friends. Hange Zoe (a crazy kid who had managed to scare the almighty Kenny Ackerman) Moblit Berner, Petra Ral, Oluo Bozado, Gunther Schultz, Eld Jin... Kenny probably forgot some of them. He merited credit for remembering the ones who basically invaded his apartment on an almost daily basis.

How he didn't expect his world to turn upside, Kenny couldn't explain but, looking back, it should have been clear. Ackermans had been killers for generations and now, one of them would soon become a policeman.

Levi came to help at the bar when he had the chance.

Not because he wanted to give a helping hand to this scum that called himself his uncle but because he didn't want to owe him anything.

That night was just a normal night. Earl's aggressivity had been nothing surprising, nor was it an isolated event. It wasn't an uncommon event at the Ackerman's bar. After Earl, Levi had to throw out three drunkards and break up two fights between shit-faced individuals before he even reached a normal's night quota of violence.

It was four am when Levi finally took out the trash. Everything inside was spotless as well.

Years of experience in the art of not sleep at night coupled with his hard days of training made Levi ignorant of the benefits of sleeping. Hange liked to say that it was why Levi was the only one to grow so little of their entire unit. Joke that Levi took with a shrug and a colourful answer, most of the time resembling "As long as I can still kick your asses to the point where you start looking like baboons, I don't give a shit about my height" though it was WAY worse when Levi himself said it.

The boy stretched and his whole back cracked and winced as though someone tried to play some sort of terrifying melody with it.

It was at that moment that he heard them.

There, in the narrow back alley, still overwhelmed by shadows, a terribly violent fight had broken out. Three men and a child. As surprising as it may have seen, the child wasn't the one in trouble. Levi approached slowly, intrigued.

The boy was armed with an iron bar he obviously knew how to use. While the men were trying to catch and immobilise him, he used his small size and agility to slide between their fingers before striking with lightning speed. He knew what parts to hit to make the men bend in half from the pain. Calves, ankles, crotch, any area painful enough to make them bend a little before he delivered the strongest blow he could to the back of their head or face. He had already managed to knock one of them (the guy was literally pissing blood, collapsed on the ground). The child was covered in haemoglobin. Levi couldn't tell whether it was the kid's or his victims'. The child attacked without any hesitation. But beyond his surprise to see such a young kid (five? Six years old?) put three adults to their knees (although they looked about to pass out from how drunk they were) the one thing that made Levi so fascinated was the kid's eyes.

Two beautiful eyes where blue and green intertwined, giving birth to the most mesmerising eyes he'd ever seen. Two burning jewels that petrified him.

The man on the ground regained consciousness and groggily grabbed the kid's ankle. The man pulled hard and the kid fell as he was about to break another one the men's nose. The one who was just saved from the kid slid his hand in his jacket. Levi knew he needed to do something. In no time he was next to the armed man. He kicked his chin with a perfectly calculated blow and the man lost consciousness. He dropped the other two ran away without taking the fallen guy with them.

In the time it took for Levi to regain his balance, the kid had the gun in his hands, pointing it at the hands were not shaking. His eyes still had the same fire in them, glowing on his bloodied face.

Levi was now completely immobile. He acted exactly as though the gun pointed at his chest was nothing more than a toy.

"Oy. Kid. Put that thing down, you're gonna hurt yourself."

The child instead pointed the gun a little higher, showing he had absolutely no intention to comply. Levi sighed:

"You think I would have knocked this guy down if I wasn't there to help?"

A glimmer of hesitation crossed the kid's eyes, his shoulders relaxed for a moment and that's all it took for Levi to jump on the kid. The cornered child pulled the trigger before the teen even had the time to take the gun from him. His wrist twisted painfully in Levi's hand, the kid bit his lip to prevent tears from rolling down his cheeks: "There's a safety, brat. Also, you'd only have gotten my thigh... before dislocating your shoulder. This kind of toy ain't really suitable for people your age... "

The growling and struggling child was trying to set himself free from the teenager.

"Why were you fighting these guys?"

In response, the boy bit Levi's hand so hard he tore a piece of skin. By reflex, Levi dealt with him by knocking the gun's handle on the kid's head. The child collapsed, unconscious. The teen swore lowly. Not only did his hand hurt like hell, now he also felt bad for hurting the brat

He lifted the boy in his arms and addressed the barely awake man on the ground

"Tell your friends that this stray dog is owned by Ackerman. If someone even tries to touch a hair of his head, I'll skin the bastard alive and use his balls' epiderm as a glass mount. I'm sure it's gonna be a hit."

He did not turn around to see if the man had registered his words. After all, he had seen his non-injured eye grow wide as he'd heard the name Ackerman. Reputation sometimes was a blessing.

Levi walked towards the back door of the bar, which he had left open. He had absolutely no idea what he would do with this kid.

He simply hoped he wasn't infected with cholera or parasites...