Mud stuck to the bottom of Rivaille's boots as he and Eren walked out of the sulfur pit. He hissed in annoyance and was about to swat the mud away when he realized that he could end up making himself and his hand even dirtier. So, without any choice left, he had to simply leave it. This pissed him off to no end. Being dirty was a sin.
Eren was being his usual naive self and tromping ahead, not seeming to mind the tall ferns that brushed his calves. Rivaille irritably swatted a fern away, hearing it snap back into position after his hand left it. They were closer to the town now, which was giving off a strong cone of smoke, whirling and twisting like mad demons in the sky.
"Is the titan still there?" Eren asked him quietly. Rivaille grunted and waved a hand over his eyes, shielding them against the sun. A faint roar answered him. "Yep."
"Can I change this time?" Eren almost begged him. "If it's an abnormality, we still don't have a way to defeat them yet, and who knows, we could get hurt-and,"
"Fine!" Rivaille snapped. "We're on the other side of the mountain anyway, but who knows, there could be more villages like this one! And what would they say to a fighting titan?"
"…" Eren considered his logic for a moment. "In a emergency, I'm still changing."
"What if it goes rampart and rages out of control?"
"You'll stop it, right? You haven't grown a pot belly yet, so.."
Rivaille glared at him and smacked his head. "Because I obviously have a pot belly."
"It was a joke! A joke!"
"Forget it. We're here." Rivaille slid his sword out with a soft slither, withdrawing the other one too. They gleamed in the light of the cloudy sun. Eren mimicked the other's movement, warily watching.
Eren gulped and clutched his sword so tightly that his hands were shaking. Rivaille gave him a skeptical look. "Are you honestly trying to back down on this one?"
"What? No!" Eren snapped back. "Just…it could be another abnormal.." he murmured, gulping. "And if what you said was right and I can't change because people could be watching..then we'll die out here, right?"
Out of all the things that he expected Rivaille to say, he didn't expect a hard kick behind his legs. The sky and ground reversed, and he found himself staring at Rivaille's half-lidded eyes. "You're starting to sound like Armin now," he scoffed. "What happened to that cocky brat that I knew? The one that would always rush into everything? What happened to him?"
Eren turned slightly to escape the intense pressure. "Maybe he grew up." He suggested. "Maybe he actually saw how the world was, and understood reality?"
Rivaille didn't have anything to say to that. He straightened up from his crouch and brushed his pants off. "Let's go. We have to stick together."
Eren nodded, shaking the dirt out of his hair, and following the slight figure of Rivaille as he wandered deeper into the town. Old signs creaked and wind whistled through the gaping holes of some of the houses. Both men were on full alert, ready to fight at a given moment. Suddenly, Eren tripped over a small bump and would've fallen if Rivaille hadn't caught him. "Watch it!" Eren cursed, feeling for what he tripped over. It was a small box, with multiple colors. Sand was falling out of the little gaps in between each one. They both stared at it curiously, each wondering what its purpose was. "..Should we open it?" Eren asked. Rivaille grunted. "Why not?"
Eren tried to pry it open, but to no anvil. "Does it even open?"
Rivaille beckoned to him. "Let me try."
Eren threw the box to him. Rivaille turned it over in his hands, a skeptical look on his face. "Dumbass. It dosen't open."
"How was I supposed to know?! What does it do, anyway?"
Rivaille frowned and turned a side. The whole side rotated, changing the colors. Eren looked at it in awe. "That's fucking awesome!"
Rivaille glared. "What's the point of this thing?"
"Maybe we have to make every side the same color? It's interesting anyway. Can I keep it?" Eren held out his outstretched hands. Rivaille raised an eyebrow and threw it to him. "If you can fit it in your bag. Look for any kind of food, too. Canned, or preserved."
Eren absentmindly nodded, fingering the cube again. Rivaille just rolled his eyes and tugged Eren's arm, leading him on.
The rest of the village that they explored wasn't full of interesting things as the cube was. Rivaille and Eren had invaded every house-(though in Rivaille's theory, they didn't invade, they merely scavenged) for food and supplies, although it turned out that all of them were spoiled or rotten, and the most dangerous thing that they could use was a kitchen Wisk.
As they got closer to the east side, they heard a harsh breathing; which made the ground shake under their feet. Rivaille cautioned Eren back with a sweep of his arm, drawing out his sword and holding it in defense position. In front of them was a sleeping titan-hell, did titans even sleep?!
Eren murmured, "Is it an abnormal?" Rivaille peeked at its limbs. "It seems to have two of each, I think we're good." He crept up behind the titan, motioning Eren to stay where he was. Cocking his blade in the defensive position, he was about to strike it's weak point when-
"ARRRGGGHHHHH!" A gigantic fist grabbed him tightly, cutting off a bit of his air supply. His sword fell with a clatter on the ground, and he frantically tried to twist out, but his arms were pinned by his sides. Shit Shit Shit Shit Shit-
He chanted inside his head. What do I do now?! Never had Rivaille been caught in a situation like this. He was always too smart for such things. "Rivaille!"
Oh, that's right. The brat was still here. He nodded to him tensely. "Strike it! Hurry!" Eren moved swiftly, shooting onto the roof of a abandoned building and aiming for its neck. The gigantic mouth in front of Rivaille was moving ever closer, threatening to eat him, chomp him, grind him, with those crooked teeth of its. "It's an abnormal!" Eren screamed. Rivaille shook his head. "What?!"
"There's an eye on the back of its head!"
"HOW THE FUCK DOES THAT STOP YOU FROM KILLING IT?!"
"It sees where I'm going!"
Rivaille paused for a moment. Sure enough, the titan was swaying and moving back and forth, evading Eren's every attack. "Is there a protection on its back?"
"Yes!"
Rivaille cursed under his breath. "I'm well dead by now." He tried in vain to move again, but this time his foot got caught in his maneuver strap. And the horrifying face was moving closer each moment. The other hand was reaching forward too, as if to rip his head off. He saw out of the corner of his eye that Eren was desperately trying to get to its weak point or ankles, both of which were moving targets. All the while, Rivaille could smell the rancid breath of the titan, which was making him dizzy as hell. He coughed as the titan held him even tighter, spitting out blood. This seemed to motivate the abnormality even more; it licked its lips greedily and was about to throw him in his mouth when suddenly-
It wheezed and doubled over in half. Rivaille suspiciously looked down. Eren had dug both of his swords into its stomach, which was oozing out a dark, gluttonous blood. The hold now loosened, Rivaille pried himself away and sprung up on the bridge of its nose, drawing two more blades out of his silver container. He shoved them into both eyes, directly into the open pupils. The titan let out a scream of fury and fear, and covered his eyes, which splattered large drops of gore onto the road, not unlike acid rain. Eren was still trying to tear its stomach apart, thinking that if he could strike it in the heart, maybe that would be better. Titans had no hearts, Rivaille thought, scoffing at the boy's foolishness. He used that as a distraction, however, and ran around to its back, swords out and ready. The monstrous eye on the back leered at him. As he got closer, he realized that it had no eyelid, and was a fixed beam, staring at him. "Makes it all the easier." He sneered. Aiming, he threw his dagger into the dark eye, which started rolling in pain. The good side? The eye was useless now. The bad side? It would heal soon and Rivaille's sword was still stuck in it.
Deciding to attack now and plan later, he faced the biggest challenge. The same disgusting bump was stretched over the spinal cord, just like the other abnormality. Knowing that just pushing the sword in was no use, he jabbed the sword to the skin and twisted it, jabbing his foot on the sword as a lever once it got down enough. He could distantly hear Eren's yells as the titan was going for him, but solely concentrated on this, sweat dripping down his nose in concentration. "Come on come on come on-"
The tip of the sword pierced the weak point, and he could feel the titan give a shiver. His sword was almost buried to the hilt now. He cursed and took out another one, jabbing and twisting right next to the previous attack. Eren screamed, falling through the sky as the titan managed to knock him sideways off his stomach. Moving faster now, Rivaille took out his last and final sword and inserted it next to the previous two. There was a pause after he was done, and after he was certain that he'd failed, there was a shuddering vibrating from the titan, and with a high keen that confirmed that it was not human, it fell with a heavy thump, shaking the abandoned houses and streets with its weight. Rivaille, who'd lept aside as the titan fell, came back down to retrieve his swords from the titan's neck. Eren, who was groggily untangling himself from the titan's fist, looked at him. "Where to now?"
Rivaille started at his swords in disgust; they were smeared with titan blood. "We'll stay at an abandoned house that doesn't have cockroaches. We'll travel more tomorrow."
Eren nodded, getting his skewered swords from the other side of the titan.
~X~
Rivaille silently cleaned his swords with a dusty towel that he found, and Eren was mulling over the cube that he had found. The sides were refusing to match up, he discovered. As soon as he'd got one side complete, then the others would refuse to match, and he had to re-do it, messing up his finished side, and then the whole cycle would start again. Rivaille raised an eyebrow imperiously. "You're wasting your time with that piece of junk."
Eren grunted. Rivaille waited for another response, and when none was forthcoming, he stopped cleaning his swords and set them down with a sigh. "Sometimes I wonder if I should've just brough Hanji along instead."
Eren jerked, messing up his cube yet again. "Fuck-Wait, what?"
Rivaille inclined his head. "What I just said. Why didn't I bring Hanji along?" he mused to himself. "She's a great fighter, she would listen, and most of all, she probably would've found a way to defeat those titans by now. Rivaille didn't tell him, but this was actually a way to get Eren secretly riled up. That boy had been too quiet lately, he mused. And that was making him edgy.
He heard a drop of a hard object on the floor and looked up to see a dark shadow stalking towards him. "What are you-" Eren put his hands on his commander's shoulders and roughly pushed him towards the bed in the corner. "Hey, this is-"
Rivaille soon felt his knees hit the back of the bed, and his boots soon became tangled with the bedsheets. "Mmmh!" he couldn't talk anymore, because Eren had quickly ensnared his lips with a branding kiss that Rivaille swore was a thousand degrees.
I had to re-write this chapter so many times….you guys don't even know. So. The winner of the poll was….Rivaille! But! The Eren fans were only 2 points less! :D So, because of all your awesome reviews and feedback, there will be some Eren topping, I promise! *bows* And don't worry, all you Rivaille fans, this *points upward to fic* will be a Rivaille top moment. Okay. Just warning you…I'm going on vacation soon! And next week I have colorguard camp for 9 hours every day! *yay lets cheer for this pathetic author!* So. I might not update as soon as I do now..the whole reason I've been updating a lot this week is because it's summer..And I got so many reviews I swore I would explode from happiness.
I don't think that this will be the last chapter I publish before I leave to YellowStone park..(yes, seeing the geyser in person! WHOO!) Bears, too. XD
Because that would be cruel, leaving you guys hanging.
Rating will change to M next chapter! :D Am I the only one who's happy about this?
Guess what the mysterious cube is! ..Although I made it painfully obvious, didn't I? ^^"
Until next time! Ja~ Ne~!
K.K
Reviews will make me try to wite until 1:00am (yes review motivation!), and reviews will convince Rivaille and Eren that they are meant to be~
Rivaille&Eren-WTF!?
Byeeee!
