AUTHOR'S NOTE: Inspired by the multiverse theory fics I've read in the Pacific Rim fandom. I wrote this all in one night, so there are probably a ton of grammatical errors, but I'm really eager to post this, so enjoy. Reviews are always appreciated.
When Mikasa is young and her world seems like an infinitely vast place, her mother cuts a symbol into the palm of her right hand and wraps a clean rag around it, pressing a dry kiss to the blooming spot of red that appears on the cloth.
"You must let it scab over," her mother says, taking her daughter's face into her hands. "Don't pick at it. When it heals over and you have only a scar left, I will tell you everything."
However, Mikasa is only a child, and everything holds no more meaning than if her mother promised to tell her nothing. Still, she nods, clenching her jaw to prevent the stubborn tears from falling as she cradles her hand to her chest.
"Do you promise me this?" Her mother has kind eyes and a kind smile, but the set of her jaw and sharpness of her brows suggest some inner steel that Mikasa herself has yet to grow into.
"I promise."
Mikasa is nine years old when she breaks the promise, though by no fault of her own. She's playing in the garden again, the bandage pulled loose from her hand in favour of the warm sun on her skin and cool breeze rifling through her hair. She's running in the forest behind their house, hiding behind trees like a hunter of old seeking prey. As she runs her hand along the rough wood of one, a splinter digs its way into the barely healed cut and Mikasa yanks her hand back. Staring at the appendage, she sees a tiny dot of blood.
She hears her father calling for her in the distance and she rises to greet him, but something strange within her pulls her down. Without any warning, there's a tugging sensation from behind her navel and the distinct sensation of having your limbs pulled through a vise. It's not a particularly painful feeling, but it's an odd one and when Mikasa tries to pry her eyes open, she can only catch glimpses of fleeting blackness dotted with tiny flecks of brightly coloured light, a night sky painted in kaleidoscopic stars.
The feeling stops and when Mikasa can finally open her eyes and examine her surroundings fully, she's in a wooden house completely unfamiliar to her. She tries to stand up, but is pulled back, rough twine weaving in and out of her hands and legs.
Inside the room is a man, but she doesn't recognize him. He catches her staring and quickly looks away, brushing his fingers against the handle of a knife at his waist.
There's a knock at the door.
The man groans and strides over to it. Mikasa can hear voices, but they're not loud enough for her to make out what is being said. The only noise permeating her senses is the distinct sound of flesh giving way to metal—it's something she's familiarized herself with, having accompanied her father on several hunts—and a body thumping to the floor. A boy stands there, looking no older than herself and clutching a blade in his shaking hands.
Mikasa is nine years old when she learns several things. One: poison and words are fickle; a knife will always kill a man. Two: there are worlds inside and around her, and sometimes if she concentrates hard enough, she can feel its steady thrum of power like a soft whisper at the back of her heart. Three: if you become steel, forged and sharpened and refolded over and over again until the edges of you point outwards, you will not bleed.
In this universe, Mikasa's parents are dead, killed moments before she arrives. She's taken in by that boy whose green eyes remind her of the trees behind her home. When she shivers, he wraps a scarf around her neck when she shivers and she nods silently, grateful for the warmth.
"You can come home with us," he promises her, throwing the last bit of scarf over her shoulder. "Are you still cold?"
Mikasa shakes her head and taking his hand, she follows him and leaves every part of her old world behind.
It's three years that she manages to stay with the Jaegers. This world is incredibly similar to her own and Mikasa almost feels at home in its strangeness. Bit by bit, her memories of her parents fade until all she has left are recollections of distinctive features, the way her father's eyes crinkled in the corners when he smiled and the brush of her mother's hand against the crown of her head.
However, after three years, Mikasa feels that tug behind her stomach and it's as if the very earth is creaking, drawing her into its embrace, and squeezing, squeezing, until it can find a new place for her.
Mikasa is twelve when she wakes up in a nondescript bunk bed, a young man towering over her.
"Wake up, Ackerman." He walks over to her window and yanks the curtains open, letting the early morning sunlight spill onto the wood floors of the cabin. "Morning drills in ten minutes."
In this world, Mikasa learns about the existence of titans, carnivorous giants whose sole mission appears to be the extinction of the human race. She's part of the army, it seems and when she looks around at her peers, she sees a pair of bright green eyes. Eren, it seems, exists in this world too.
However, it's in this world that she meets him.
He's a cadet only a few years older than her and the most infuriating person she's ever seen. When they take to the courses with the Three Dimensional Maneuver Gear—the physicality of which Mikasa excels in—he's the one leading the pack, scoring high marks in every category and it grates on her.
It doesn't help that Eren considers him an idol of sorts, always making a point of referencing him in conversation.
"I hate that guy," she says one night over dinner and the entire mess hall is silent when the words pour from her lips.
Eren freezes, a spoonful of mashed potatoes halfway to his mouth. "W-why would you even say that?"
She shrugs, but when she feels an ominous presence behind her, she turns around slowly. "What?"
"I heard you talking about me."
The entire hall watches their exchange with baited breath. Two of the best students, both stoic and whose collected façade served only to further their reputation, face each other.
"I wasn't talking to you." There's a rising anger in her throat, bitter bile that she swallows back. She remembers about steel, and edges, and never bleeding again.
"You hate me."
If she wasn't so busy not staring at him, Mikasa might have noticed the slight draw to his brows and the way he stood, almost leaning toward her. She might have seen his hand, hesitantly reaching forward, and drawing back. But, Mikasa didn't see any of this and in this world, she would never again see this side to Levi.
"I certainly don't know you well enough to like you." Every word like a blade of its own and that lost chance is almost tangible in the room.
Levi straightens, eyes narrowing in a cold rage. "You're nothing but a shitty brat."
Mikasa stands up, towering over the older boy by several inches and as she ignores that familiar pulling behind her bellybutton, she opens her mouth to deliver the final blow. "Watch your mouth."
Over the course of the next five years, Mikasa travels through several universes. Though each timeline is different, she finds a constant within them. Firstly, her parents are usually missing, whether they were killed in a freak accident, or just ran off. Secondly, he's always there. In some of them, it's Levi who rescues her from the kidnappers and she lives for several months with him and his family before the worlds inside her begin to shift again. In others, they both belong to the military, but they're best friends and when he looks at her, he does so with soft eyes that betray his rigid countenance.
Some universes pit them against each other, enemy spies that usually end with Mikasa's blade or bullet in his chest and the whisper of a cold kiss against her cheek. In some, he loves her deeply, fully, throwing himself to take the blow meant for her. In one universe, he's far older than her, a mentor figure who teaching her the best methods of disposing of an enemy and encourages her to fight. In another, she's his mentor. He takes advice from her, listening with wide eyes and shaking hands.
However, not every universe is riddled with war and creatures trying to eat humans. There are some where Levi and Mikasa are both students and when he confesses to her beneath the first blossom of the cherry trees, she accepts.
In the third universe of her seventeenth year, Mikasa is pulled to a world where monsters arise from the sea and she pilots an enormous mecha with Levi to fight them. In doing so, their minds are bridged together and he's the first Levi to learn of her secret.
"You…time travel?" He tests the words in his mouth, rolling them around like candy before delivering them.
Mikasa shakes her head, exhaustion heavy in her bones (steel and edges). She holds Levi's hand in her own. "I don't know what it is, only that it's been happening since I was nine."
"And I'm not the first Levi you've met?" His eyes flicker over her face and even though their minds aren't linked anymore, she can almost feel his presence inside her. Disbelief, jealousy, but most of all, this overwhelming warmth that makes her want to sink into him and never leave.
"I hated the first Levi I met," she says softly. "That one was a prick. Each Levi is a little different."
"Did they all think you were a brat?"
She snorts slightly. She can still feel his eyes on her, roving over her lips and the way her eyelashes sweep her cheeks when she blinks. "Always." Leaning forward, she rests her head on his shoulder and watches the mechanics work on the chestplate of their mech. "But, you were always there. No matter what world I went to, you were always there."
This Levi doesn't say anything, but the way he gently squeezes Mikasa's hand and presses a kiss to her forehead tells her everything she wants to know.
There's another constant that Mikasa notices about each of these universes. Though he loves her and a part of her grows to love him back, she never ends up with Levi. They're always pulled apart though circumstances out of their control. Sometimes, it's the tugging behind Mikasa's stomach that cuts their time together short and sometimes it's Death and sometimes it's Levi who just leaves.
When Mikasa is twenty-one, she becomes an assassin, and her first major project is the cleaning of Levi, leader of one of the biggest gangs in the city. This is hardly her first time killing and she would be lying if she said she'd never manipulated anyone into doing her bidding before.
It takes a while, but Mikasa knows about Levi and she knows his weaknesses and before long, she has him in the palm of her hand. The first time they lie together, she readies herself to dispose of him, knife poised below his jaw, but her hand freezes.
There's always a next time.
The next time, he lies against her breast, listening to the way her heart beats and she can feel him everywhere. He dots the inside of her thighs, the red marks on her neck and breasts and she can feel his soft breath brushing against her collarbone. Her knife is only a stretch away, but she knows she could never bring herself to do it.
"I love you," he whispers into her hair and she knows he loves it when they lie together because it's the only time he can look into her eyes properly. "Marry me."
Stars blink at the corners of her vision. "Why?"
He sits up, staring at her like she's spoken some foreign tongue. "I love you."
"Are you sure?"
"I wouldn't be asking if I wasn't sure," he says brusquely.
"O-okay." She runs her hand along his bicep, urging him back to bed with her. For that one second, she can pretend she's not an assassin and he's not the man she's been hired to kill. She can pretend that she isn't a ticking time bomb that will explode and send her careening off to another universe. For a moment, she can pretend she's just a girl who has somebody she loves.
Happiness, however, never lasts long for her.
"You haven't killed him yet." Her boss, Armin Arlert—oftentimes her childhood friend—says to her, watching the city skyline from his office. "Mikasa, we could stand to make a lot of money from this."
"Give me more time," she replies. In her seat, she's completely still, moving nothing but her eyes.
"I've given you plenty of time." Armin glares at her and she nearly flinches from the anger. She's not used to this Armin. The Armin she knows is a kind boy. Then again, can she really say she knows Armin? "Do it tonight."
"Tonight?"
"This is your last chance, Mikasa. Our employer is getting testy."
She leaves Armin's office with a bitter taste in her mouth and flags a cab that takes her to Levi's flat in the center of the city. There's a poisoned pin hidden in her ring and a knife in her clutch, but she knows that if it comes down to it, she can kill a man with her bare hands.
"I hope you're not going to get sick from the rain," he says when she enters using the key he'd given her. "I don't want to catch any cold you might have."
"I'm fine."
He takes her coat from her and examines her with narrowed eyes. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," she says, wrapping her arms around him. He responds in kind, laying a hand on the curve of her waist. He's within her grasp. She steps back. "I can't do this."
"Can't do what?" Levi opens his mouth, but his body is suddenly blown back and he crashes against the floor-to-ceiling window.
Mikasa wheels around to the source of the noise. A young man with bright green eyes steps out of some hidden alcove. "Armin had me tail you. He knew something was up."
"E-eren." Mikasa unclenches and clenches her fists reflexively.
"What happened, Mikasa?" Eren gestures to the mess inside the apartment. "You were supposed to finish this ages ago! Just an in-and-out job, like always!"
Despite his yelling, Mikasa can only hear the sound of her own heart. Steel and edges. I will not bleed. Within seconds, she has her knife in hand and it only takes her a moment to decide what has to be done. "I was going to do it." The knife wobbles, hovering in the wall a millimetre above Levi's corpse. "You just got in my way."
Eren rolls his eyes and laughs, but it's a mocking, jarring noise. "Next time, just say so."
"I did!" The last word is a scream and when Mikasa presses her hand to her mouth, she finally notices the tears leaking out.
Eren cocks his head at her.
"It's nothing," she says, wiping at them with a free hand. "I'm just tired. I want to go home."
Eren nods and reaches out a hand to her, but as she goes to take it, her vision narrows and goes completely black.
When she opens her eyes, the first thing she notices is the grass. Green and long, it grows in thick patches around her prone body, dotted with white daises and yellow dandelions. The second thing is the feeling of the sun on her skin, drying the tears that had once cascaded down her face.
Standing up, Mikasa looks around at her surroundings. She's in the middle of a field and the only remotely welcoming place is a house a few metres away. She stretches out her stiff muscles and makes the short trek there, keeping her senses alert.
Something about the house is familiar. There's some memory buried deep inside that calls to her and against her better judgement, she raises her fist to knock on the door.
"Welcome back, Mikasa."
"Mother?"
It's been twelve years, but her mother has hardly changed. A few wrinkles and grey hairs here and there, but she's still the same woman she was when Mikasa left.
"I knew you'd managed to make your way back home."
"Is this really my home?" She can't hope. Not now.
"Why don't you ask your father?" Taking Mikasa by the arm, she leads the girl inside and there, sitting at a very familiar table, is a man. Upon seeing Mikasa, he smiles and the corners of his eyes crinkle.
"I've missed you. Did you learn a lot while you were gone?"
She'd learned how to kill titans and aliens and men, how to seduce others into telling her their secrets, how to operate a giant robot, how to fall in love, how to shoot a gun, and throw a knife with frightening accuracy, but she wasn't about to tell him any of that. "I did."
"Horses are all saddled up, Mr. Ackerman." A voice sounds from the door. "I'm ready when you are."
Mikasa stands up immediately. It couldn't be. "Who's that?"
"Come on in." Her father beckons to the stranger. "This is our stablehand. He's been a huge help on the farm lately. Levi, meet my daughter, Mikasa."
The man's eyes linger on her for a second too long and her father good-naturedly swats the back of his head. He grumbles for a moment, but turns his gaze back to Mikasa. "Nice to meet you." He holds his hand out.
"Nice to meet you, too." She takes it and they shake. "It's very nice to meet you, Levi."