4. So the Fate flows
"Father, how much longer do we have to go until we reach the house?" a small, green-eyed boy asked his father, dangling his legs on the cart. His father glanced at him, not daring to take his eyes off the road.
"We're nearly there, Eren. See? You can see the house right over there."
Eren stared at the small house, eyeing it with disinterest.
"There is also a little girl called Mikasa," his father added, gently pulling the cart to a stop.
"Mikasa?"
"That's right. A little girl about your age. Try to get along with her."
"That depends on her attitude…" Eren mumbled.
"With your attitude, you're not going to have any friends!" Dr. Yeager exclaimed with exasperation as he knocked on the door.
"Hm? Nobody home? Ackerman-family, this is Grisha! Please open the door… I'm going in…"
Dr. Yeager cautiously pushed the door open, grunting with surprise when it got stuck. He carefully peered inside, gasping with shock at the scene before him. The man quickly let himself in, checking the man's and woman's pulse.
"Gah, it's no good… They've been dead for hours…" Dr. Yeager mumbled, shaking his head.
"Eren, did you find the little girl? Mikasa?"
"No, Dad. She's not here." Eren replied, not shocked nor frightened by the scene before him. He had seen dead bodies before, as the son of the only doctor in Shigashina District. But his mental ability to stay calm at this kind of situation amazed even Dr. Yeager.
"Guess the murderer kidnaped her, then… Now Dad is going to call the police and request an investigation. Meanwhile, you wait for me downstairs. Did you understand that, Eren?"
Eren only mutely stared at the far wall, pretending not to hear his father's voice.
Eren was scared.
He hated the dinky smell of blood that filled the old cabin. His sensitive ears caught the faintest sound of the flies buzzing in the kitchen, slurping away at the abandoned and spoiled food. The whole stillness, the eeriness of the room frightened him, chilled him to the bone. And the corpses laid out on the floor were soaked in blood and death, and no matter how Eren was used to the concept of death and coldness, due to his father being a doctor, it didn't mean that he was used to it and felt nothing about it.
And he was also scared for Mikasa.
The girl was missing, probably kidnapped by the murderers. And from the looks of it, it didn't seem like the murderers, those animals in the clothes of a human, took the care to kill the parents after they took the girl away. No, they just probably killed them right on the spot, sneering at parents' futile attempt to protect their beloved ones. And the girl would have watched it all, watched it was the life was drained out of her parents. Eren knew how horrible that was. To see, to see it all but to be able to do nothing…he had spent any nights crying beneath his covers as the blank gazes of the patients hunted him to his sleep. He had stayed unemotional and cool near his dad, not wanting him to worry and not wanting to be seen weak, but he was frightened all the time.
He wanted to rescue the girl fast, from the grasps of the vile animals that held her captive and comfort her, to heal the haunting memories as best as he could.
Eren tightly gripped the knife on his hand, and he began walking faster toward the dim light of a cabin that faintly illuminated the forest far away.
I'm hurting… And I'm cold…
"…damn that midget. I'm glad that we got rid of him. But still, now we've lost more than half of the gang, and we're forced to rest in this crappy damp cabin while we should be feasting ourselves in our hideout. Plus, I'm not even sure if we're going to be able to sell that girl. After all the hassle we've been through, even killing her parents!"
Mikasa blinked slowly, feeling as if she was underwater. Her throat was bare, and the cold gnashed at her, sending chills down her body. Her wrist, still wrapped in a bandage, throbbed gently. She wished for something warm, or to be more specific, she wished for the black scarf Uncle Levi gave to her. Where was Uncle Levi? Was he dead? The thugs spoke of him as if he was dead.
"We're going to be able to sell her. I mean, look at her face," the other thug roughly pushed Mikasa onto her back, sending straight array of light into her unfocused eyes and causing her to squeeze her eyes shut.
"Yeah, she's pretty for young 'un, but I'm not interested in that stuff," the first thug replied back. The second thug sighed in exasperation, shaking his head like he was hopeless.
"I'm not asking about your taste, dimwit. She's an Oriental. Long ago, before the walls trapped humanity, there were different kinds of people, and Oriental was and still is one of them. They are very rare now, and she might just possibly be the very last one. We're going to auction her off at the Underground, right below the Capital. She'll fetch us a juicy price considering the Oriental rareness."
"But her father didn't look like much of an Oriental, did he? She's not pure-blood, then."
"That's right! Her mother was the one who was worth something! But you freaked out and killed her!"
"But she was swinging that bloody ax at me! What was I supposed to do? Just stand there and let her kill me?"
"You might as well have, given how useless you are…"
"But she's still worth something…She may be the last possible one who actually has some Oriental blood, half or full!"
"Yeah, but she's not AS worthy, you idiot!"
As the two thugs entered a heated argument, Mikasa lay lifeless on the floor, feeling drained and tired.
Mother… Mikasa called silently in her head.
Mother… You told me to flee before. You told me to flee to Uncle Levi. But now he's dead... Now where should I flee to? The world without you or Uncle Levi is too cold for me to live in…
"Um… hello?" a little boy with bright, frightened green eyes cautiously opened the door. The two thugs immediately stiffened with alarm, facing the door full of hostility, but relaxed as they saw that it was only a boy. However, when he tried to enter, one of the thugs gripped on the door, preventing it from opening further.
"Not so fast, kiddo! How did you find about this place?"
"I… uh… I was lost in the woods, and then I saw this cabin…" the green-eyed boy murmured, with tears in his eyes, looking scared out of his pants. The two thugs exchanged a smile. The boy seemed harmless. The thugs knelt down until he was to the eye-to-eye level with the boy and patted the boy's curly brown hair, speaking in a soft, soothing voice.
"Oh, come on. A little boy like you shouldn't be out in the forest during the night all alone. There are scary critters and wolves, after all. But don't worry. My friend and I will accompany you to find your-"
The man looked down in surprise as the boy reached up and grabbed the man's scarf.
"Thank you, sir," the boy politely thanked the thug, yet his face was as stormy as a snowstorm.
"But I have caught up already. Now die, motherfucker!"
The green-eyed boy slashed his knife that he had hidden behind his back across the man's throat, killing him instantly. The other thug stood numbly, shocked.
"Uh… No way… This can't be real…" He mumbled, refusing to believe the scene right in front of his eyes. Meanwhile, the boy ran into another room, slamming the door behind him. The thug snapped back to reality, grabbing his knife and advancing towards the door.
"Hey! Don't go in there! Stay where you are, dammit! To hell with you, kid!" He frantically waved his weapon in the air, slowly walking towards the door but not quite daring to touch it. A gasp tore out of his throat as the door slammed open again, and the boy advanced with a yell, having tied his knife to one of the broomsticks and used it as a lance. The makeshift lance went right through the man's heart, extinguishing his life.
"Aaaaah!" the boy yelled, "Die, you shit! You fucking animal! Die! Don't ever wake up again, ever! You had it coming! You scumbag! This is what you deserve!"
He picked up the knife the thug dropped and stabbed the man over and over, clutching the weapon, so tightly his knuckles were white. Slowly, the crazy frenzy slowed, and the boy came back to this senses.
"Hey, are you alright?" the green-eyed boy knelt down beside Mikasa, freeing her arms and legs from the rope that bound her with the blood-stained knife.
"You must be Mikasa. I'm Eren, Dr. Yeager's son, but I think you already know that. I think you met my dad already."
She watched silently as the knots became undone, then opened her mouth to say what she just remembered.
"…There were three."
"Huh?" Eren looked at her quizzically, not quite understanding what she meant.
"There were three left… not two…" Mikasa repeated, and right as the look of understanding flashed through the Eren's eyes, the door behind them opened.
"Eren! Eren!" Dr. Yeager called into the night, searching for his little boy. He had led the military police to the general direction of the trail the thugs most likely took, towards the abandoned cabin. He had noticed that there were signs of battle and blood was everywhere. Alarmed, he had gone into his search with an MP accompanying him and followed the blood trail, worried that Eren might have gotten lost.
He didn't find his boy.
But he did find a person, however. A raven-haired with a silver streak in his hair was leaning against a tree trunk, blood still seeping from his gaping wound on the side. The man's face was quite youthful, but his body marred with scars, exceptionally many for a man who looked so young.
"Sir, are you all right? Can you hear me?" Dr. Yeager carefully took pulse and temperature. His body was icy from the blood loss, but there was still a pulse beating, a very faint pulse, but he was still alive.
"Sir, wake up! Sir!" Dr. Yeager shook the man more urgently, but the man was still lifeless and limp. With a sigh, he motioned for the MP to pick the mysterious man up. The MP carefully picked up the small man, grunting at the surprisingly heavy weight. He squinted to see the man's face clearly, but it was impossible to do so in the dark light. But strangely, the MP felt like he saw this man somewhere.
"Take him to the cart," Dr. Yeager instructed.
"You learned emergency treatment and medical care during training, right?" The MP nodded.
"Good. When you reach my cart, medical supplies should be there. Bind up his wounds with a bandage and try to stop the blood."
"But he might be one of the thugs that killed the Ackerman family and kidnaped the girl!" MP protested, looking down at the raven-haired man with doubt. Dr. Yeager shook his head firmly, signaling the MP to go to the cart and treat the man.
"Be might be and he might not be. But that doesn't change the fact that he's an injured man and needs medical treatment. Now, go!"
Leaving the grumbling MP behind him, Dr. Yeager decided to go toward the cabin where the thugs were most likely to be. Eren wasn't anywhere around here, and he might as well be at the cabin, then.
The door opened.
The last thug slowly walked in, a disbelieving look in his eyes as he took in his dead comrades and the two kids. Eren and Mikasa, too, stared at the man, shocked. Then, snapping out of the daze, Eren dove for his dagger, but the thug too has gathered his wits and kicked Eren across the room. The man ran over to the coughing boy and grabbed him by the neck, slowly squeezing the life out of him.
"Little bitch, did you do this?" the thug growled, tightening his grip on the boy's neck.
"I can't believe it… You killed them? How could you? They were my friends, you a** hole…! …How could you… You are dead, brat!" the man yelled, his body shaking violently with anger. Eren coughed and sputtered, gasping for breath but gaining none. And all this while, Mikasa could only watch, frozen hopelessly in shock as he saw her rescuer getting killed. She did nothing. She could do nothing.
"F… Fight!" Eren rasped, using his remaining breathes to yell.
"Fight, you hear me? If we don't win, we are dead… But if we don't fight, we can't win… And if we win, we live! You can't win without fighting…. Fight!"
Mikasa snapped out of her shock. Slowly, trembling, she grabbed the knife that lay on the floor, feeling the cold, wooden handle in her palm. She stood, shaking from head to toe, tears welling in her eyes with fear.
"I… I…" she whimpered.
"I… can't do anything…I can't do such a thing…"
And that's when she remembered that she had seen this before. The horrible things she was experiencing right then, she has seen a thousand times. The terrifying moment she was feeling right then; she has heard countless times.
Spider eats the butterfly that gets trapped in the net.
The bird eats the spider to survive.
And she has eaten that very bird, caught by her father.
Because in this cruel and merciless world where the strong eats the weak.
The second she realized, no, remembered how cruel the world was, the world she lived in, her body stopped trembling.
From that moment, she remembered how merciless the world was; she was able to control herself perfectly.
She believed that she could do anything.
Fight…
Fight.
FIGHT!
Gritting her teeth, Mikasa gripped the knife in her hand, breaking the handle with the pressure. Mindless, she shifted her weight from one foot to the other, gaining maximum force she would exert the exact way Levi has taught her how to. She leaned her body forward, swinging her arm back and driving the knife right into the heart.
She could do anything.
A/N: First, as usual, thank you to Martiniy.y, my Beta reader! And thank you to you readers for reading this story. Now, the plotline follows the manga, but with little tweaks here and there thanks to our Levi. Thanks for reading, and a penny for your thoughts, please!
Reply to the Reviews (sorry for the late replies, I forgot about them...):
sarakEKO: So, thanks to Levi, the story is now what is supposed to be...with Mikasa with the Yeagers. I hope you enjoyed!
RociAlar: Well...This happened...I hope you liked it :D
Suzume Suzuki: Mwhahahaha! *evil laugh* Yes, there will be more, a lot more!
