Author's Note: First complete work, yaaay!
This is a directionless drabble inspired by scorchedtrees' Blood, her first story in Absence of Starlight (go check her out, her style and stories are gorgeous) about Mikasa in which I try to be as angsty and dramatic as possible (and fail spectacularly). I may or may not make another equally directionless drabble with the same title based on Levi, but if I ever do, it'll be after Isabel and Farlan's impending deaths (oh god, Brain, why'd you have to bring that up right now) and his attempt to kill Erwin.
Note on paragraph 2, sentence 4: I don't know if ice cream exists in the SnK world but it's summer where I'm at and Selecta's Overloaded Coffee Crumble's all that exists is in my aching head and heart and somehow my longing kinda found its way here so…
I left out when Eren gave her his scarf because I honestly couldn't see how I could possibly fit a knife into that. It's got to be the most innocently comforting scene I've ever seen so let's leave it at that, shall we?
Dedicated to Megumi, even if you have no idea who these people are (Magbasa't manood ka na kasi!). Smile, girl!
Blade
The first time Mikasa held a knife was when she was five, on a rainy day when, when, bored and restless as any five year old could get, she had asked to help her mother out in the kitchen. Her mother, wary over the prospect of letting her child hold something so dangerous but willing to let her little girl learn, gave her the oldest, bluntest knife of the set she had and set up her daughter's little stepping stool next to her spot by the kitchen table.
She no longer remembers what it had been she was slicing; she is sure it had been something very easy to cut even with a very dull blade. She no longer knows how it happened or why, especially since she had been under her mother's watchful eye the whole time but she could easily recall the shock she felt as its point pricked her left pointer finger. She had stood there, quivering, eying the oozing drops of brilliant scarlet that she believed were the source of her pain with mingled fright and fascination as her mother did her best to stay calm and called on her husband for bandages. They washed her hand under rushing water from their faucet, dried it with a towel, wrapped it in gauze and then her parents hugged her tight and bought her ice cream for not crying being such a brave girl.
She cried later that night when she woke up from bed in cold sweat, screaming hysterically over visions that even then were already lost to her forever.
When she was seven, her father proposed to teach her how to use a knife to defend herself. He had insisted to his wife that it was about time their little girl learned of these things but their little girl sided with her mother that no, not yet, now wasn't the time, Mikasa had the rest of her life to worry about the "monstrosities out there," although her innocent young mind hadn't been entirely sure what these monstrosities might be. But her mother left for the market one day – she doesn't know now why she didn't come with her now – and her father took advantage of his wife's absence.
"Someday, your mother and I will be gone and there will be no one left to protect you," he had told her. "It is important that you would be able to do it yourself."
"Protect me from what?" she had asked him. He just smiled a little sadly and kissed her on the forehead before handing her the hunting blade he used as a child.
When her mother returned, Mikasa said nothing about the things her father taught her or how he planned continuing on teaching her whenever her mother wasn't around. Even so, she lay awake for nights on end the following weeks, wondering why it was necessary for her to learn how to hurt and to kill.
When she was nine, she made a mark on their dining table with her nails by grasping its edge, fighting hard not to cry out in pain as her mother etched their symbol unto her wrist with her special knife. After what felt like an eternity, she finally finished and Mikasa was allowed to uncurl her fist and toes again; she was proud of herself for rightfully sharing her mother's mark, proud of having been able to stomach the most excruciating amount of pain she had ever felt in her life.
...
She watched the axe fall on her mother's neck; the blood that flowed from her twitching body was a red that burned her eyes and made her want to water them forever. The same red burned at the back of the green-eyed boy's eyes as he plunged his knife into her kidnapper's chest, over, and over, and over, until there was nothing left of him left but his crimson stain on the floor of the house.
She had watched both spectacles with hitched breath and didn't cry as she did so; the first had frozen her and the second had numbed her, until she was sure that nothing was going to surprise or affect her ever again. The world outside was a lifeless grey but she saw nothing but red, burning her softly, slowly, with an intimacy she didn't understand, and she savored it without asking why.
She found she was okay with that, okay with being numb, until her savior himself was being crushed underfoot by something bigger than himself like a bug. Terror gripped her heart then, and though she would never admit it now, she had been more afraid of the prospect of having to be a part of the darkness she had just witnessed than the prospect of seeing another human die in front of her eyes.
And then, when the boy opened his mouth to talk, his words clattered around in her head and it was if someone had plunged the same knife she was holding into her heart, murdering and awakening her. What other choice did she have but to fight for her life, now that she had nothing left to fear, nothing left to lose?
...
When she came to herself, her hands were stained with the same sickly red, but it didn't hurt her eyes anymore. She became vaguely aware of the splinters on her ankle and fingers from her charge and they bothered her a little. She helped the boy to his feet and when he caught his breath again, he led her outside and together they washed their bloodstained hands in the rain.
She stared at her mother's scar on her wrist and wondered why she ever branded the process of getting it as painful.
Mikasa was fourteen when they were finally taught how to handle dual blades and she used hers with relative ease and, to hear her instructor and everyone else around her tell it, skill. And why not?
If humans were lumps of flesh she could apathetically hack into pieces, what were their rubbery substitutes at the obstacle courses and Titans to her?
Her first Titan kill was smooth, albeit a hurried one. She had blunted her blades on the first go, rendering them useless, and she replaced them with new ones.
She felt like Armin had taken them from her sheathes and plunged them through her chest when she heard her most dreaded words escape his lips.
...
She placed both her hands and the small blade on her lap, thanking fate for her life but her prayer was cut short when she waved her armed hand in the air at the approaching Titan, adrenaline throbbing through her veins. She jumped a few feet away and felt her face contort in confusion. Why am I still struggling? Why do I still fight?
Her eyes fell on the pomegranate she had been pensively munching on for what felt like a lifetime ago (before he left) that dropped out of one of her jacket's inner pockets. Her head whizzed with words and pictures until she found herself crying, guilty of what she had almost done yet strengthened by the thought of her family's burning green eyes.
She held on to the small blade and yelled out a battle cry. She wasn't about to go down just yet.
...
Mikasa stared at the sky-blue orb reflected on the blade that had been hers quiver with fear and she took the strip of metal from her comrade's hand. It clanged dully as she cast it into the pavement thirty feet below them and she refused to look at her blond friend's frightened shock.
She crouched and took her best friend's hand in hers. The weight of the blade against her head was gone and she could see more clearly now: he was all she had left and she wasn't going to lose him.
"Armin," she said, staring right through his soul. "I'm not leaving you here."
...
When she saw her brother emerge out of the rouge Titan's body, all she was able to comprehend was Eren. When she came to herself, he was in her arms and something told her that he was supposed to be dead. Panic returned to her as she pressed an ear against his chest, terrified of what she would find.
She could hear his heart beating.
Something slashed a hole through her thick veil of self-control and a flood of emotions came pouring out of her heart, flooding her eyes and lungs. She scrunched up her face to prevent herself from breaking down but the gap was getting wider by the second, like a dam being opened for the first time in fifteen years. She raised her head and cried, her body wracked by her sobs and her heart singing with sweet, sweet relief, thanking Destiny, thanking life, thanking the heavens that the one thing that made her life worth living hadn't left her, not yet.
Ever since her captain injured himself in saving her, Mikasa had wanted nothing but a chance to return the favor. There was something behind his eyes that made her uncomfortable, as if he understood each motive behind her silence, each unspoken word beneath her expressionless mask, and though it made her feel exposed and naked, she couldn't help but be grateful for the fact that he knew her. And now, as she tore her eyes away from Jean, Sasha, Connie and Historia who had finally beaten their current opponent and were safe, she was about to get her wish.
The Titan came from behind him and he was already busy dodging an abnormally dexterous deviant. He succeeded in killing it but doing so left him completely open, and time slowed for her as he struggled to free himself from the second Titan.
She maneuvered towards him and arrived in the nick of time, completely severing the gigantic hand that grasped him off the monster's wrist; she made a hairpin swerve to swipe her weapons against its nape before rebounding gracefully off a tree back to the route they were supposed to take. It was all over in five seconds flat.
"Are you alright, Levi-heichou?" she asked, leveling with him as he righted himself on their journey. He eyed critically and she returned her mentor's gaze.
"Not bad, Ackerman," he said. She flushed crimson with pride and smiled at the ground and she knew deep in her heart that he meant it.
One night, she sat on the roof of their Squad's headquarters, carving pictures into her skin with her blades, lightly so that they didn't leave permanent scars but not too much that she wouldn't feel hurt. Eren hissed at her dangerously when he walked in on her and she explained that it was to prepare her for fighting Titans, to get her used to the pain she would unavoidably experience along the way of their lives as soldiers. He called her crazy then and dragged her downstairs where he forced her to sit in the kitchen, washed her arms with a wet cloth and bandaged her wounds, his angry scolding falling on her deaf ears when all she could think about was how gently and closely he held her, like she was something precious he couldn't bear to shatter or lose.
And when he finished and told her never to do that again, all she could do was stare into his eyes and consider discarding her gear for eternity and melting her blades down into useless lumps so that she could just hold on to him forever, gently and closely, like he was something precious she couldn't bear to shatter or lose.
When Mikasa stared at the deep cut on her lover's nape, all she could think of is the invisible blade that pierced her heart and ripped her soul and made her mind shriek in the midst of the piercing pain; it cut even deeper when she tried to breathe and tainted everything she perceived in a red that burned her softly, slowly, with an intimacy she didn't understand, and she savored it without asking why. She stared at Eren and his lifeless green eyes stared back as the invisible knife dug itself deeper into the thin fabric of her existence before twisting itself, hewing, shredding, hacking, and slicing at her soul until there was nothing left.
And even when there was nothing left, nothing but the ugly, open gash upon her being, the knife was still there, hovering at the back of her eyelids, painting the world a dull scarlet, leaving it frozen and red.