Prompt: Firsts
His hands were doused in blood. Grimacing, he pulled out a cloth to wipe his hands and blade handle.
"Hey Levi, what number was that? Four?" Erwin walked up behind Levi, shaking blood off his own blades. His expression brightened when Levi nodded. "Excellent. I knew you'd do well out here. Now keep moving, we've got a bit further to go before we can drop supplies at the base and head back."
Levi nodded again while listening to Hanji hollering excitedly in the distance. He wondered idly where the woman's endless energy came from. He finished wiping his hands on the cloth, tucked it neatly away, then shot off to the next zone.
Gut-wrenching screams filled the air, and Levi followed them. He zipped around a tree to see another fresh recruit like himself, but this one was half in the mouth of a titan, shrieking in fear and pain. Levi quickly shot an anchor point into the titan's neck and arched closer, closer...
With a sickening crunch the titan closed its jaws fully and the top half of the recruit's body fell to the ground with a squelching thud.
Channeling his rage into his downward stroke, he sliced through the titan's nape, nearly severing the head from the body. He leapt neatly to the ground while it steamed and smoldered next to him.
Breathing hard, he walked slowly to the body of the fellow recruit. If only he'd been quicker. Maybe this soldier could have lived. He knew he should move on, he knew there was nothing more he could do. But still...how could he just walk away so easily, forget this soldier, his life?
He was still mulling this over, staring at the body when the hiss of gas announced another soldier coming towards him.
"Levi!" A woman's voice called out. He looked up to see Hanji gracefully gliding down to him. "Hey! You ok? Not injured, are you?" She looked him over while he stood there silently. "You look ok. Excellent! We finished moving supplies safely, so now we just need to make it back to the wall and you will have finished your first scouting mission!" She paused and really looked at him. "Levi? What's wrong?" She followed his gaze to the mangled body lying in the grass. "Friend of yours?" She asked sympathetically.
Levi shook his head. "Never really knew him."
She cocked her head at him in puzzlement. "Then why-? Oh. Was he your first?"
He looked at her this time. "Eh?"
"Was he your first? First death by a titan that you've witnessed? Or first death that you wish you could have prevented, but couldn't?"
He was so quiet in his reply that Hanji almost missed it. "Both. I'm not new to death. Not in the slightest. But out here, in this job, how do we remember them?"
Hanji shrugged. "Some don't bother. Others write their names and keep them recorded in a book of remembrance. Others keep a memento of that person. It varies. What do you want to-"
The woman trailed off as Levi strode forward suddenly, kneeling when he got to the body. A knife appeared in his hand, and she watched silently as he carefully moved the blood soaked uniform jacket and slit the material around their legion's patch.
He straightened when done, sliding the knife back into its sheath, tucking the patch away.
Impulsively, Hanji reached out and grabbed the shorter man and pulled him into a tight embrace. "It doesn't get an easier. But that's what friends are for. If you ever want to talk about it, or vent, or get drunk and cry, I'm here, kay?" She buried her face in his hair, mussing it slightly.
Levi pushed her away after a moment. "I'll be fine. And leave my hair alone, shitty glasses. Who knows how filthy your face and hands are?"
She looked at him for a moment, then turned away laughing. She was still laughing when she fired off a hook and jetted away.
He had to admit it to himself though. For being hugged on impulse, but a woman who was likely more filthy than she even looked, and in the middle of a battle field, his first hug by Hanji Zoe was rather pleasant.
Now to just survive getting back to the wall so he could say he completed his first mission beyond the wall.