Disclaimer:: I DO NOT OWN SHINGEKI NO KYOJIN nor any of it's lovely characters

Chapter 1

"Ne mommy, why do you always say that to dad" I asked, a innocent yet curious expression spread out across my face.

"Say what honey?" A gentle voice replied.

"What you just said!"

"... Oh? You mean Aishiteru? Well you see Mikasa, in our race's language, it meant-"

"Whatchu thinking about?" A figured popped down beside a small jet-black haired girl. "Eren..." Mikasa replied.

"You know you look so deep in thought in all the time, what do you think about?" A little Eren asked in a confused tone, slightly tilting his head as he flopped his head down on to her pillow. His hazel hair, which was starting to get a bit long, covered his bright Caribbean green eyes and he proceeded to swipe it off his face.

"I was just thinking about my mom," Mikasa replied quietly and the boy suddenly stopped fidgeting.

After a long uncomfortable silence Eren lifted his head and asked, "what about your mom?"

This was the first time he had ever gathered up the courage to ask her anything regarding to her family, so it took the girl a little by surprise. "Well... She used teach me little words that were from our language..."

"Ah that sounds fun! Teach me something too!" An eager reply came from the boy laying beside her. Mikasa never admitted it to him, but that childish curiosity of his always lifted her mood up.

"I... don't remember much," she replied, sounding noticeably happier, "But there was this one word that she always told my dad. It was: 'Aishiteru'"

"Huh?" What a strange sounding word, Eren thought, "What does that mean?"

"Well... I'm not sure."

"What?!" He was clearly very disappointed. "I thought she taught it to you!"

"I asked her once," Mikasa defended back, "but we were interrupted, she never did tell me what it meant." With every word she began to sound sad again. Eren hated it when Mikasa was sad. Normally she was expressionless and he was fine with it, but when she was happy he would be happy, and when she was sad he couldn't help but start to feel down too.

"Hm well what do you think it means?" He replied quickly, trying to brighten up the mood again. "Aishiteru... Aishiteru..." The boy repeated, trying to grasp the meaning behind the word.

"I don't know but mom used to always say it to dad. I think it means something like 'I care for you'" she turned and looked at Eren and found him staring at her, "-or something like that." She muttered and quickly turned away, a bit embarrassed by how concentrated he was on her.

A few moments passed and he was still staring, Mikasa could feel her face slowly turn redder by the second. "Mikasa?" the boy finally spoke.

"Y-yes?" She jerked towards the origin of the voice, a little too quickly to her embarrassment.

"Aishiteru" Eren said and grinned at her.

Now thinking back... Perhaps that was the first time she-

"Mikasaaaaaaaaaaa" a cheerful voice interrupted her thoughts, dragging her back to reality. "Armin..." She slowly turned to face the intruder, a slightly unhappy expression revealed on her usual poker face.

"A-ah" the blond seemed to sense her dissatisfaction and his movements quickly became a lot duller. "Um I'm here to pass on a message from Corporal Rivaille-"

Corporal? What business does he want with her? Mikasa couldn't help but wonder. Personally she doesn't like the corporal, his attitude always annoyed her. However since they had encountered the female Titan and he saved her life, she's been meaning to repay the debt. But with the recent accident that led to both Reiner and Bertolt trapping themselves in the same type of impenetrable crystal like Annie, things had been a little busy.

"He says that with the previous expedition and the reports submitted regarding you, Mikasa Ackerman, the higher ups have decided that you possess an considerable amount of undeniable potential-" He paused momentarily to catch his breath, "And that from now on you will be personally training with the corporal himself."

Armin spurted out the last sentence so fast in one breath that it took Mikasa several seconds than necessary to register what he had just said.

Before she could ask any questions Armin blurted "Don't worry Mikasa. I think you'll only be with him during training, you can still be with Eren for the rest of the day." He grinned at her, seeming satisfied that he read her mind. Mikasa turned away and hid her blush with her scarf. Sometimes this kid was too bright for his own good. "You should probably go see him at the office," Armin said as he started to walk away, "he said he wanted to discuss some things with you."

Mikasa sighed before she turned around and headed toward their temporary HQ. After the recent mission the scouting legion suffered its most devastating loss in decades. Thousands of men died on duty and even though they were able to retrieve the Colossal and Armored Titan alive, they had no valuable information to present to the capital about this man-slaughtering species.

Another failure, in other words.

Right now they had retreated to the old scouting legions HQ, the capital was undoubtedly not very happy and ordered them to lower their activities for the time being. The place was in ruins when they first arrived but after a few days of intensive clean up, led by none other than the corporal of course, the castle was almost good as new.

That corporal really is something, Mikasa thought as she walked down the sparkling clean stone hallway and arrived in front of a large wooden oak door. She gently knocked three times before a voice from within replied, "Come in."

The door creaked and she peeked her head inside. This was the first time she's been to his office. "Mikasa Ackerman, present sir"

"Skip the formality Ackerman," the figure sitting behind a long stone desk twice his size replied. "So I assume your scared little blondie passed on the message to you?" He glanced up and gave her a snotty smirk that made her instantly regretted coming over in the first place.

"Yes, Armin," she stressed on his name, "did sir."

"I said skip the formality," Rivallie's face darted back to his usual depressed look, "Ackerman." He stressed teasingly on her name as he leaned back into his leather seat.

She was starting to get more and more pissed off by the second. Mikasa normally has a incredibly high tolerance rate for others. Yet for some reason, the midget had always seemed to find a way to get on her nerves. Honestly, maybe it's because of his cockiness or just the way he seem to intentionally make her mad all the time, but just being around him makes her exhausted.

"No matter, do you know the reason I called you to my office?" He cocked an eyebrow at her.

"No, s-" she was able to catch herself this time, "-corporal Rivaille."

"Just call me Rivaille."

"Then no I do not know the reason, Corporal Rivaille."

"The reason, Ackerman" he sighed, "is I want to make some things clear to you." Rivaille glanced up and cupped his hands together. "In case you haven't guessed already, I am not in particularly fond of... People. So naturally I am not anymore happier than you are with the new turn of events." He seemed bored at this point and started playing with the papers he had on his table. "Don't think you're so special just because Irwin assigned you to me. From what I've seen and heard, you've got a long way to go." His dark orbs found hers and a smirk crept up his face again. "You're still weak."

It took a lot of effort for Mikasa to not grab the nearest thing and fling it at the shortie. If she wasn't in debt to him she would've went and crushed his little ego right here and now. But she was. Don't mind his attitude Mikasa, be the better person here. She thought to herself and kept her face emotionless. "Yes, corporal Rivaille."

He seemed slightly disappointed by her reaction. Or rather, lack of reaction. "Don't expect me to go soft on you." His voice hardened. "Come to my office tomorrow morning 10 minutes before your normal training begins. For every second you're late it's 20 push ups, for every mistake you make during training is 50. Same rules apply every day. You'd better not waste my time. Also," He spun his chair around so his back was facing her. "You'll be on clean-up duty for the rest of the day when you're not training."

"Wait what-?" Mikasa started to protest. Didn't Armin say she'll be still able to stick around with Eren? "Clean-up duty? I didn't know they had one."

"They don't," the corporal's chair was still turned, and even though she couldn't see his face she had a pretty good idea of what his expression was from the sadistic chuckle that followed after. "You'll be cleaning up MY office."

"Bu-"

"Objections?" He spun himself around again, "Or are you still obsessed over your little boyfriend?"

That got her, and Mikasa was left standing there with her mouth wide open gaping at him. Seeming very satisfied this time with the reaction he got, Rivaille sneered "I told you, I won't be going easy on you. This training will also be a good exercise for you to learn how to control your emotions. A slip up like what you did back there when we faced the female Titan would've been fateful had I not been there. Do we understand each other? Good. Now you're dismissed."

"Man today is hot," Armin stated frankly beside him, "I wonder what Mikasa's doing with the corporal today."

Eren looked up at the clear blue sky, there was not a cloud in sight and the sun was blazing directly above them. "Yea I wonder..." He mumbled mindlessly.

A couple weeks ago Mikasa stopped appearing during training, and they hadn't been seeing her at lunches and dinners either. Apparently she was called off to train separately with the Corporal because the higher ups decided this was too basic for someone with her abilities. In fact, the only time they ever got to see her was in the morning at breakfasts, but she's normally in a rush so they haven't really talked. Occasionally when Eren's called in by Hanji for one of her experiments he'd see her too, but too busy running errands or cleaning most of the time to chat. Because he was able to prove that he didn't possess any threats for humanity on their last mission the capital finally let him go. Irwin suggested that he trained with the rest of the scouting legion but that didn't change the fact that he was still under tight supervision. In fact, he could see a guard right now a little bit off to his right prancing around.

The absence of Mikasa felt... Well, weird. Because they had always been together ever since the day he saved her years ago. And even though it was nice to not have her constantly follow him around and nag him, Eren couldn't help but kinda miss her a bit. He's pretty sure that he wasn't the only one who'd felt this way for the past weeks. Jean was pretty upset after he learned of the news, and lately he's been so down and depleted of his energy that he hasn't even tried picking a fight with Eren. Not once, in weeks! Armin seemed pretty upset as well even though he's tried so hard to cover it up. He'd always bring up Mikasa and things regarding to her, which made Eren feel a little weird inside at times.

What the hell am I thinking? Eren inwardly cursed at himself. It must be the heat. Why would he miss her? She's Mikasa. The annoying, overly protective, needs-to-mind-her-own-business step-sister of his after all.

"Hey what's going on over there?" Armin pointed and Eren followed his eyes after the direction he's staring at. Right now they were on break for their reflex training and while they were too busy complaining about the heat, a crowd had gathered in the near distance beside them. "Let's go see what the commotion is about-" Before he could finish the sentence his blond friend popped up and began jogging towards the group of people that was slowly growing bigger. "Race you!"

NOTES: Thank you so much for reading! This is my first fanfic so I don't know if it's any good... reviews and feedbacks would be greatly appreciated! Please leave something and tell me what you thought of the first chapter! The next chapter is already 3 quarters finished so it'll be posted asap~

Also I am well aware that so far this seems more like a rivaillexmikasa than erenxmikasa but REST ASSURED *v* it will all be cleared up soon enough so please be patient with me