The Ripper and the Runt

Disclaimer: SnK and its characters are not mine.

A/N: Hey guys, this is a head cannon I have about how Levi met Kenny. Again, getting this out before Isayama disproves it in a future issue.

The sandy blond man threw his head back in order to down the rest of his whisky and tossed the empty glass bottle aside onto the stone sidewalk. Kenny Ackerman couldn't remember the last time he was sober for more than a few hours straight. All he knew was that it was at some point before Gramps died a few years back.

The young man swayed on his wobbly legs down the empty street. Night would be here soon, which meant he'd better get back to his hovel before he had another drink. Couldn't risk passing out in the street where the MPs could find him. Though maybe if they did catch him before he got home, the least they could do is give him a head start to get away. After all, he did cut back on his murders to five a week, which was pretty gracious of him.

He looked around with cloudy eyes. Where the hell did he end up again? A dilapidated two-story building across the street soon reminded him.

Tch, he didn't even know why he kept coming back to this area. His sister Kushel was never going to leave that brothel, not even when she had that crybaby boy. It'd been awhile since he spied on them though, so maybe the brat's stopped bawling by now.

As he stumbled down a few more blocks, cursing the alcohol for finding its way into his mouth again, he suddenly heard a high-pitched scream. It wasn't just any scream though; it rang in a hauntingly familiar voice.

"Let me go, you bastards!" shouted a woman from the alleyway ahead of him.

Kenny picked up the pace on his hobbling. No, it couldn't be…

"Come on, baby, that's not what you were saying last night," replied a slimy-sounding man. "I think I deserve a little more sugar after that huge wad of cash I gave you."

"No, not in front of my son—" A slap cut her off from the rest of her plea.

Kenny growled as he dragged himself along the wall to peer around the corner. The sight before him made him gasp, "Kushel…!"

Three dirty-looking men surrounded her. The slender, blond woman was backed into the dead end of the alley with a little boy peeping from behind her leg. He had short, black hair and fiery glare in his equally dark eyes.

"The kid's gotta learn one way or another, don't ya, boy?" The first asshole leered at him. "Watch and learn how a real man shows your whore of a mother a good time."

The man's face was quickly met with a clenched fist from his crimson-faced sister. She wasted no time kneeing him in the groin and then shoving his head into the wall behind her.

Kenny let out an amused chuckle. Atta girl!

However, asshole number 1's goonies, once they recovered from their shock, furiously descended on her, each grabbing one of her arms. Her little boy scattered as they slammed her up against the same wall.

"You bitch!" Slimy stumbled to his feet and spat blood. "I'm gonna tear you apart for that one!"

"Leave my mama alone!" Kushel's brat shouted as he stomped down on rightside lackey's foot.

With a howl of pain, said goon let go long enough to smack the kid to the ground. "Beat it, pipsqueak!"

Kenny thought it was about time he made his grand entrance. This was all playing out so cliché.

"Oi oi oi! How about you try doing that to someone taller than a runt!" He called as he turned the corner and sauntered down the dark street.

"Who you calling a runt?!" his nephew barked back. Ungrateful little brat. Couldn't that spec of dust see that he was here to help them?

At least the surprise on his sister's face made it all worth it. "Kenny…?" she gasped in nothing more than a whisper.

Leftside lackey growled. "Get lost! This ain't any of your business!"

"Tsk tsk! That isn't any way to greet the famous Kenny the Ripper," he chided as he tipped his hat up so they could bask in his glory.

"…Who?" All three of them looked at each other quizzically.

Kenny's face fell. "Seriously? I worked so hard for that title!" he pouted.

Original Slimeball spat bloody saliva onto the pavement. "Take care of this asshole, Joe."

Leftside goon peeled away from his sister and pounded a fist into the opposite hand. "With pleasure, boss," he replied with a toothy grin.

"Tch…" Kenny rolled up his sleeves and took a deep breath. So much for getting home clean. Before leering Joe could take two steps forward, the Ripper dashed down the rest of the alleyway, arms dangling out behind him. Kenny reached for one of the knives on his belt once he was about 5 meters from his prey such that as soon as he was right in front of him, he made a clean slash at his throat.

Eyes bulging wide, the surprised crony could do nothing but gurgle up blood as he collapsed, heaving his last gasps.

Looking around, Kenny could see that his fallen target wasn't the only one left in shock. Kushel's brat, for one, was trembling in his tiny shoes. "Ma-Mama…I'm gonna get help!"

Before either he or his sister could react, the dark-haired brat dashed past Kenny out of the alleyway.

"Wait! Lev—!" she called out to him but was cut off by her own yelp of pain.

The Ripper's eyes narrowed as he found the source of her distress. Slimy had yanked both her arms behind her and was currently pressing a dagger to the side of her throat.

"Not another step, or she gets it!" his voice wavered, revealing his true fear.

"Tell ya what…" Kenny smoothly started, twirling the knife in his hand as he put one foot forward. "How about you let her go, and I don't show you your own innards before I kill you?" He followed this with another foot in front of the first.

The greasy man backed up into his remaining henchman and nearly jumped at the unexpected contact. "What-What are you waiting for?" he barked over his shoulder. "Get him!"

"Not Joe" gulped but did as he was told. He sidestepped around the two of them and came forward, brandishing his own pitiful excuse for a knife.

Kenny guffawed. "Really? Okay, okay, listen up, pal. How about I cut you a deal too?" The sandy blond man took a few deep breaths to keep from laughing again. "Scram now, and you get to keep your hide. Whaddya say? Once in a lifetime offer!"

The remaining lackey looked from him to his boss and back to him. It was clear he was hard-pressed to make a decision, but Kenny knew just how to sway him. In the blink of an eye, he had closed the distance between them and stuck his face right in front of the henchman's. The Ripper tipped his hat up, flashing him his most sadistic grin. "Boo."

Shrieking in terror, the scrawny man hightailed it out of the alleyway as fast as his legs would carry him, slipping and stumbling over trash on his way out.

Kenny couldn't help but let out a chuckle. "Chicken ass." With that out of the way, he then set his blood-thirsty sights on the big boy.

"S-Stay back! I'm warning you!" Scum Face by now had backed himself into the wall, and the grip on his weapon was growing slick from all the sweat oozing from his palms.

While the man was too busy eyeing Kenny, Kushel suddenly jerked her head away from his weapon and bashed the back of her skull into his face. With a howl of pain, Slimy dropped his dagger.

That was all the opportunity Kenny needed.

As his sister made a break for it, the Ripper lunged forward and pinned Slimy to the wall. "Hold still," the older Ackerman grumbled as the short man tried to squirm free. "I can't get a clean cut if you keep moving like that."

The thought of his imminent death must have been quite terrifying, for the man abruptly stiffened, his beady eyes going wide. Well, at least that made this easier. Pulling back his right arm, he quickly slashed Slimy's throat open, producing a beautiful spray of crimson.

With a rasping shudder, his victim crumpled to the ground, a puddle of his own blood growing around him. Kenny turned and pulled out a handkerchief to wipe off his blade. "Tch, dirty piece of filth."

"Thank you…" came a murmur from beside him.

He cocked his head to the side and raised a quizzical eyebrow at his sister. "What're ya thanking me for? This is part of my job as a big brother, isn't it?"

Kushel hugged her arms and looked down at the ground, a sad look in her face. "But the last time I saw you…well, with how mad you were at me and everything…"

"Hey." He sheathed his knife and reached over to rest both his hands on her shoulders. "Just because I told you you were stupid for keeping the brat, doesn't mean I stopped caring about you."

Kenny could see her slate blue eyes shimmer. "If you cared, why haven't I seen you in the last five years?" A single tear rolled down her cheek, and she snapped her head up to fix him a hurt glare. "Where were you when I needed you, Kenny?"

"Whoa, whoa, hang on there," the young man said as he took a step back. "I warned you having that kid would be nothing but trouble, especially with our family name. Besides, I deal in some really shady business now, and bad enough if I get caught showing attachment to one person. But two? We'd all be screwed." With a growl, he turned to leave. "I probably shouldn't even be here. Can't risk running into the MPs with my buzzed ass right now."

"Wait." She took a step forward to take his hand in hers. "Maybe we can meet up some time. I haven't even introduced you to your nephew yet…"

Kenny forcefully yanked his arm away. "Didn't you hear anything I just said? We can't see each other again! Ever." He took a deep breath before murmuring, "I can't lose someone else again…"

Kushel gasped. "So, Gramps…?"

He nodded without looking at her.

"Kenny, I'm so sorry…" She reached out for him again but he sidestepped her. Kushel straightened up and resigned herself to the fact that he wasn't in any mood to be touched. "Then that means all this time you've been alone…?"

The older man shrugged. "Not really. I've had plenty of alcohol to keep me company."

"That's not good for you."

A boisterous laugh erupted from Kenny's lips. "Damn, really? And here I thought drinking would solve all my problems."

Kushel gave an indignant "Humph!" at his sarcastic reply.

Once he caught his breath, he said more seriously, "You'd better go find that brat of yours. Tell him his famous uncle said 'hi' or some shit like that."

Kenny had only made it a few steps away when her voice caught his attention. "You asked me once why I wanted to keep him."

He paused but didn't turn around this time. "Yeah, and you told me I wouldn't understand."

"Maybe you will now." She sighed before continuing, "It's because I didn't want to be alone, Kenny." Kushel gave him a moment to let that sink in. "When I ran away from you guys, all I could think about was my freedom. But after roaming the streets for awhile, I found it wasn't all it was cracked up to be, but I was too ashamed to crawl back to you guys. So I tried taking care of myself and settled down—took that job at the brothel to make ends meet. I'd been doing fine on my own like that, but after awhile, I felt like something was still missing…"

"So you got knocked up with some random son of a bitch and thought you could start your own family," Kenny spat bitterly over his shoulder. He couldn't help the tinge of anger in his voice. Why shouldn't he be upset? She didn't have faith that they would take her in as she was. She chose to have that brat over coming back with him.

Kenny had expected her to look guilty or ashamed, something to acknowledge she'd messed up, but to his surprise, she actually gave a small smile. "Yes, and I don't regret any minute of it."

The tall man whirled around to berate her some more when he heard the sound of footsteps quickly approaching.

"This'd better not be some prank, kid!"

"Yeah, we don't take kindly to little boys who cry wolf."

Kenny instantly turned his attention back to the entrance of the alleyway and felt his blood freeze in his veins.

Military Police.

The kid had brought the goddamn Military Police.

About a dozen MPs flooded in and stopped roughly thirty meters away from him. Behind them was Kushel's scrawny brat.

"Hey, isn't that Kenny the Ripper?"

"I think you're right. The brass will pay us top dollar to bring him in. Even more as dead!"

The man in question gritted his teeth as they raised their rifles at the two of them. They were complete sitting ducks.

"Wait! Don't shoot!" cried the dark-haired boy, tugging at one MP's arm. "My mom's over there."

The runt was met with a shove to the ground. "Sorry, kid. This guy's worth more to us than your whore of a mother. But them's the breaks, right?"

"No, you can't!"

Kenny couldn't tell if it was the alcohol or if his mind was shutting down on him at the situation, but everything seemed to slow down. With his impaired reaction time, he'd never be able to save both himself and his sister. The best he could hope for would be to shield her and hope she survived.

As the gunshots echoed around him, he launched his body toward the last family member he'd ever known. Heh, he supposed everyone's time had to come, even his. At least he would go down doing the most noble thing he'd ever done in his pathetic excuse for a life.

Kenny braced himself for the excruciating pain he had hoped never to experience again. However, he was met with a warm body fiercely embracing his. His eyes popped open as something forced him back up against the wall.

It took a moment for him to register that the blood covering him wasn't his own. That he was in fact, still alive, and that the woman in his arms soon wouldn't be.

"Kushel…! You…"

The light was rapidly fading from her eyes as he laid her down on the ground. In the back of his mind, he could barely register the sound of the MPs reloading their weapons and the sound of little footsteps rushing toward them.

"Kenny…" she moaned, coughing up blood. The slender hand he'd wrapped his around weakly gripped him back. "Take…care of…my son," Kushel gasped. With her final breath, she murmured, "He is my pride."

A million panes of glass shattered within Kenny's last semblance of a heart. His beloved sister…

A childish giggle echoed in his mind.

His closest family…

"Where were you when I needed you, Kenny?"

…was dead.

Everything around him faded to blackness until it was just him clutching the body of his sister. The sound of his own heartbeat was the only thing he heard. It thrummed fiercely, loudly, and grew evermore frequent.

He couldn't save her. The man who'd killed over a hundred Military Policemen couldn't protect the one person dearest to him.

A crackling energy surged through him. It was as if lightning had filled his veins and threatened to spill out and consume him.

Then Kenny saw red.

With an anguished cry, he was on his feet. He tore out a knife from his belt and rushed for the closest MP, who had just barely raised his rifle in preparation to shoot. In the blink of an eye, the man's throat was slashed, his head nearly being decapitated in the process. At the same time, Kenny withdrew a throwing dagger and hurled it into the chest of another MP who was a second away from firing at him.

"Get him! Take him down now!" barked the officer in command.

"Die, you bastards!" Kenny shouted as he ducked a shot and came back up strong to slice through two more throats. He was rushed by a burly man but nothing that a sidestep, jump on his back, and knife to the skull couldn't fix. The Ripper was far from concerned about using his signature killing style. All he wanted to see was their blood and their corpses at his feet.

"Die! Die! Die!" Everything was a whirlwind of metal and smoke and sprays of blood. Nothing seemed to register in his mind anymore except for the desire to kill.

Kill.

KILL!

At the end of what could have been minutes or a goddamned eternity for all he cared, a pile of MP bodies littered the alleyway. The only thing that could be heard was the sound of the dusk wind blowing through his coat and sending it flapping around him. Kenny panted hard, and his legs threatened to cave underneath him. He quickly scanned the area for stragglers—for another target to vent his undying rage on.

Then he heard a footfall behind him.

In an instant, his bloody knife was thrust out as he whirled around. It would have claimed another victim too had a pair of stormy eyes not stopped him.

Kushel's brat stared back at him, a haunted expression on his tiny face. Blood soaked the front of the kid's shirt and trousers. "What are you waiting for?" he asked in a deadpan voice. "Aren't you going to kill me?"

Kenny flinched at his words. In his condition, he probably would have. But something kept his arm frozen in midair.

"That's what you do, isn't it? Kill people?"

Silently, he lowered his outstretched limb. He wanted nothing more than to walk away, to never lay eyes on this kid again. "What's your name, brat?" The words were out of his parched mouth before he could stop himself.

That tiny pair of steel orbs bored into him, searching. "Levi." It was barely a whisper. "Levi Ackerman."

Kenny's other hand shot out as he backhanded the kid, who fell to the ground, a shocked look to his pale face. "Don't you ever say that cursed family name again, ya hear?!" he practically screamed. "From now on, your name is just Levi. Levi and nothing else, got it?" Stupid kid. Didn't she ever teach him not to go around blabbering his last name like that?

The dark-haired boy meekly nodded.

"Good, now get up and let's get outta here. Or would you like to call in more MPs to try to shoot us?"

Levi turned his head up toward the tall man. "Us?"

"Don't read too much into it, brat," Kenny growled. "Your mom told me to take care of you, and I'm not one to turn down a request from the woman who saved my life." He shot the boy a deadly glare. "But you even think about stabbing me in the back and I'll chop you into pieces and cook you in a stew."

The boy slowly got to his feet and took one last look over his shoulder at his mother's body.

Kenny's heart clenched at the sight. He knew he should pay her proper respects and bury her, but he also knew that if he saw her like that for just one more minute, he was going to turn into a bigger crybaby than his nephew. And so, he turned on his heel and walked away. Like a goddamn coward.

As the Ripper picked his way through the corpses of the MPs he'd slain, he heard footsteps slowly, reluctantly following him. He began to wonder how drunk he would have to get when he got home to forget about this shitty day. That was when he felt a tiny hand grab onto his.

Kenny looked down at the brat beside him in surprise. "You knew my mother, didn't you?" the boy asked with wondering eyes.

"Yeah, kid…you could say that…" he mumbled. A part of him wanted to wrest itself from his grip and yet another part of him didn't want to let go.

"How?" This runt—Levi—quietly followed with "…if you don't me asking."

The blond man begrudgingly grunted, "I guess I could tell you a couple stories later…if you keep quiet until we get home." Levi merely bobbed his head, looking down at the ground with a mournful face reminiscent of his sister's.

It was then Kenny realized that alcohol would no longer be his only companion. For the first time in years, he wasn't alone.