DISCLAIMERS: I do not own any of the characters here. Everything belongs to Isayama Hajime.
(Note: Rivaille is written as 'Levi' is because I followed the official romanization from the author.)
A few hours after the success on defending Trost from these gigantic beasts known as the 'titans', Commander Pixis began to have a few thoughts going on inside his head. This came up when he was slouching on a chair, facing directly to the landscape of Trost. What was once a beautiful district instantly downgraded into a chaotic dump filled with rubbles of every size. The commander with bald head frowned as he gazed upon this scenery.
"How unfortunate is this district... I wish I can fix this and make it inhabitable again." He murmured to himself. All of a sudden, a spark ignited within him and he jolted from his chair. The commander had came up with a new operation—which was to utilize everyone in the area during their day off, including people from the Recon Corps, the Stationary Guards, and the rookies from the trainees' squads.
A young female with short, copper brown hair stretched her arms upon waking up. It was sunrise, and obviously nobody was awake yet. Not after that bone-crunching operation yesterday. The petite figure jumped down from the top bunk and her foot landed a few centimetres next to her comrade's face. This small house was the only emergency base for the Recon Cops in this district, so they had to cram around 30 surviving members here. The rest stayed in unoccupied neighbouring houses. Thankfully, this base was still intact and it had two floors, which helped everyone to feel less like a canned sardine here.
The girl swiftly tiptoed over her comrades' unmoved bodies and quietly opened the door leading to the small hallway of the first floor. As she head across the stairs to the bathroom, an unfamiliar figure descended from the stairs. He looked slightly startled as he caught sight of the girl. However, he remained his composure and nod at her. The girl nodded back at him.
"Good morning, Corporal. And here I thought I was the only one awake at this hour." She greeted him with a smile.
"...Just Levi is fine, Petra. And good morning to you too." He replied. There was an awkward silence that follows, but Petra quickly came up with something to say.
"Uhh, so, Cor—I mean, Levi, are you...Umm...Going to the bathroom too?"
"Oh my goodness, what on Earth did I just ask the Corporal about?! Bathroom? That's just stupid, Petra!" Petra's inner voice said, and she winced at the thought of it. The Corporal is such a serious person, and this is such a stupid thing to ask to someone of his kind.
Levi shook his head in response. "I'm going to the storage room, to check out if we had any spare equipments left. We have to be prepared for emergency orders anytime now."
"Ahh, I see. Well, I don't want to prolong you, so I'll be going first. Good day to you, Levi." Petra said, heading to the bathroom. Once she entered the bathroom, she was extremely relieved. Even though she had known Levi for years now, engaging in a proper conversation with him had always been the ultimate challenge for her. He was such a reserved and stoic person. Plus, nobody had never seen him smile or laugh. Not even once. Levi might be an excellent fighter and a great leader, but he really needed to fix his demeanor in front of other people.
Petra took a pail of water from the small, wooden bathtub on the corner of the small bathroom. She cupped her hands into the pail and splashed her face with ice cold water. Her feeble hands tingled upon the freezing sensation. Quickly, she repeated the action for a few more times until there was no more water left in the pail. The thought of taking a bath after crossed her mind, but she decided that she needed to save the remaining water for her comrades. Being selfish is the last attitude you should display when you're a soldier anyway.
As she exited the bathroom, apparently a couple of her comrades were already awake. They were all yawning and stretching all over the place, all still looking beaten up. All of them still wore their uniform, and some of them were badly tattered. Behind those ripped off clothes, Petra could see the wounds inflicted from yesterday's deadly battle. It was not a pretty sight, but she was used to it. Thankfully this time she was not wounded heavily, just a few minor scratches on her leg.
A comrade from her unit, the Special Operations Squad greeted her. His name was Gunter Shulz, the second-in-command in the S.O.S.
"Good morning, Petra! How are you doing?"
"I'm fine! Thank you for asking, Gunter. How is your leg? Did it heal properly?"
Gunter chuckled. "Thankfully, yeah! It still hurts, but I'm sure I can still ride a horse with it."
"That's good to hear. So... Why are so many people already awake? It was only me and Corporal who are up 10 minutes ago."
"Well, Hanji dramatically fell from the bed and elbowed Auruo's chest, which made him choke so hard... Obviously that caused quite a ruckus in the room."
"Ahahaha, that's Hanji for you. Oh, are the cadetes awake yet? I haven't seen them anywhere in the hallway..."
"Nope, still snoozing off." Gunter said, shaking his head. "Especially that titan boy. Eren Jaeger, wasn't it? Chief Irvin said that he and his friends are nowhere near being conscious."
"Must've been tough for them, going through all this..." Petra sighed. "Oh well, just let them rest then. They did a good job."
"Sure they did! Oh, Petra? I'm going to the kitchen for a bit. I'm gonna salvage the leftover canned foods. I'm so hungry right now!"
Her face instantly glowed in happiness. "Let me tag along! My stomach's been growling since forever, actually."
Both of them went to the kitchen and checked out the cupboards lined up neatly against the wall. Petra had to scavenge from the lower cupboards, due to her petite figure. So far, she only found some expired canned beef and a few dead rodents. Just when she was about to give up, her eyes landed on the sight two new cans of beans.
"Gunter! I found some food for us!" She exclaimed, without looking at him. "Gunter? What's wrong?"
"Uhh, Petra, the Corporal's here..."
"W-wha? I-I'm sorry C—YAHHH!" Petra screamed as her head hit the top of the cupboard. She rubbed the small bump on her head and stood up to the sight of Levi frowning and crossing his arms.
"C-Corporal! I deeply apologize for my irresponsible action! I was not going to steal food or anything! You have my word!"
Levi grunted. "Apology accepted. Besides, I'm not here to reprimand the both of you. Commander Pixis' messenger had personally told me that he wants everyone left from Recon Corps in this area to leave and head to the wall in 20 minutes. Your job will be to inform this to the rest of remaining soldiers here. Do I make myself clear?"
"Y-yes, sir!" The two reply in unison, with their right hand balled up on their right chest. Levi left the kitchen afterwards, which all of a sudden triggered grumpy Gunter.
"Urrghh I am really not in the mood to do this. I'm still hungry..."
"Neither do I, actually... Well, the Commander's orders are absolute. I can go wake all the cadets up and you can go wake up the rest next door. Sounds good?" Petra said.
He nodded in agreement. "Alright! You're better with kids anyways."
"What's that supposed to mean, Gunter?" She pouted.
"N-nothing in particular, really. Okay then, we should not be dilly-dallying here! Let's go!"
Petra then went upstairs to the first room out of the three rooms on the top floor. It took her around 10 minutes to wake up all cadets inside this room, including Jaeger and his prodigy lady friend, Ackerman. Luckily, the rest in the other rooms weren't particularly dozed off, so she and the cadets could actually arrive at the wall on time.
"Good morning, soldiers. I see that you have all received my orders and are all present here on time. Good job!" The Commander said, as his voice echoed throughout the crowd of soldiers. "Now, fellow soldiers, look behind you. Don't you see how wrecked this district is?"
Petra took a glance behind her, and indeed the district was in a big mess. Houses were all destroyed, rubbles and planks were in all sorts of places, and the smell of decay from the corpses was still extremely pungent here. The other soldiers began to murmur things too, and sharing disgusted glances at each other.
"Silence, soldiers!" Commander Pixis barked. "Now, now, you all have take a good look on this district right? Who do you think are faulty for this mess?"
"The titans sir!" One soldier yelled amongst the crowd.
"Are you sure, young man? We are the ones who attacked them, and our methods of combat have been extremely destructive on this district. Indeed, we are not to be fully blamed for this. But aren't we actually indirectly causing all this?"
The Commander's words somehow made sense to Petra and some other soldiers as well. She could see some soldiers actually nodding in agreement and some having guilty looks on their faces.
Of course, there are always two sides to the coin, so many others do not agree with this. As the waves of arguments come clashing from one to the other, all of a sudden Hanji raised her hand and asked a question.
"So, Commander, what do you suggest we should do? Clean up this place?"
A huge grin was showed up the Commander's face. "Exactly! I don't think it's an impossible task with more than 200 capable soldiers here. We can't do anything about moving the huge rubbles yet, but we can clean up all the houses, right?"
"EEEEHH?!" The soldiers exclaimed. Upon hearing the word 'clean up', there was only one person Petra had in mind—her team leader, the clean freak Corporal Levi. She scanned the crowd for his figure, and to her disbelief—she saw a slight upward curve on his lips.
"W-what...Did the Corporal just smile..." Petra murmered to herself, mouth agape.
"Alright, that's enough!" The Commander barked again, snapping Petra out from her state of shock.
"Soldiers, you heard me! Yes, we are going to clean this place up with all remaining cleaning equipments left inside the storage rooms underground! Extra equipments will be delivered by noon. Oh, and you all are going to be divided by groups of 4. There should be two senior soldiers and two cadets in one group. Once your name is called, reconcile with your groups and go to work. Irvin, would you please read the group division for me please?"
The tall, refined, blonde-haired man stepped up beside Commander Pixis and began reading the names from a book that the Commander gave earlier. Petra was about to doze off when finally her name was being read.
"Group 65: Levi! Petra Ral! Armin Arlert! Annie Leondhart!"
She smiled to herself cynically upon her group members being announced. "O-oh well, if fate decides this... Ahahah..."
"What's wrong, Petra-san?" A young, feminime boy said as he approached her. "Corporal Levi is already heading out to a house on that corner, so shouldn't we go too?"
"Alright then. Thanks for informing, Armin. Let's go now, shall we? Oh, and where's Annie?"
"She went to the storage compartment to get some stuffs, I think. Okay then, let's get going!"
No matter how kind and patient she was as a person, Petra was absolutely pessimistic about cleaning houses alongside Levi. He was the type who'd get angry over one speck of dust or complain about how pathetic someone's cleaning methods are.
"Goodness gracious, God please bless me... I'd rather fight a 20m class titan than cleaning houses together with the Corporal..."
Author's Comments
Hello I am back from an extremely long hiatus =w='' Sorry if my writing skills has perhaps detoriate... I'll try my best to improve next time! Oh, and don't worry, the fun parts are on the next chapter. So tune in!