Author's Notes: Here it is folks. What I'm sure you've all been waiting for: Eren and Annie interacting with each other and building up a relationship. Sorry it's taken this long to get to it, but now that the focus of the story has now shifted to this it'll start to pick up. And I can promise you to expect some romance very shortly after this chapter. This however brings me to my next point. I have exams pretty much the whole month of May and next week is my review week, so updates will be much less frequent until like the last week of May. I'm sorry, but once I get finished with exams I'll have much more time to write and so expect longer chapters in a few weeks! And finally, thank you so so much for the continuing support and feedback. I saw this story now has over 1000 views, which I thing is amazing and its all thanks to you! Last but not least, please leave a review and follow/favorite if you enjoy!
Chapter 7: Fights
Some members of the Leonhart family are characterized as having a poor attitude or being uninterested in anything. This is incorrect. More likely these individuals just find whatever they're doing boring or too easy, and wish to move onto something more exciting. There's nothing wrong with being bored by a task, but it can potentially be a source of conflict when it is an assigned task. -Annie's Journal
Annie's routine of sneaking off to be alone in her clearing while the other recruits worked on basic physical exercises and techniques remained pretty much the same for the first couple of weeks. She would hang around for the first few minutes of whatever exercise was happening, then walk away once Shadis or whichever of his assistants was supervising the recruits. The system worked well for the most part, then one day Reiner had to notice her sneaking off during armed combat practice. She had overheard Reiner and Eren talking about her and how her sneaking away every day made her seem lazy, so she stopped in her tracks, ready to confront the two.
Reiner walked up to Annie with a stupid grin on his face. "Don't want to practice with the rest of us? Maybe you should rethink why you decided to join if you're this lazy."
Annie knew this was a way to get under her skin and mock her for disappearing, and told herself it wouldn't work, but somehow it did. She gave Reiner her look of death and mouthed "I'll deal with you later" to him, while Eren ran up to them.
"Hey, Reiner, why are you being so rude?" Eren asked before seeing how irritated she was.
Annie realized what Reiner was doing and shifted her piercing gaze to Eren, who seemed terrified to face her. Reiner shoved Eren in front of Annie and said "Go get her!" while Eren protested.
Finally, Eren seemed to collect himself enough to lunge at Annie, who dodged the lunge and then swung her left leg out as Eren passed her. Her foot connected with his thigh and he fell to the ground in pain. He seemed sort of stunned. Annie, meanwhile, looked at Reiner, waiting for him to be done with the pointless drill.
"Can I go now?" she asked impatiently.
Reiner continued smiling stupidly at her. "You didn't do too badly, but the drill ends when you have your opponent's dagger."
Annie rolled her eyes and returned to her stance as Eren attempted to lunge at her again. She grabbed him by the wrist with her right hand, grabbed the dagger, and knocked his feet out from under him in one fluid motion. Eren landed on his back and crumpled over, looking up at Reiner. Annie tossed the wooden dagger in the air once, then tossed it to Reiner. "Alright. Your turn to fight me Reiner," Annie said, an angry edge to her voice.
Reiner gasped at the thought of having to fight Annie, who he was terrified of despite being unwilling to admit it. Eren gave Reiner a pathetic look and said "Go teach her what it means to be a soldier, Reiner..."
Reiner sucked in his breath but before he could even move Annie had jabbed him in the gut, kicked him in the leg and back, and punched him in the face. Reiner collapsed, humiliated. Annie readjusted her hair then noticed Eren looking up at her. "What?" she asked, annoyed.
"Your technique is really good. Where did you learn that?" he asked, seeming genuinely interested.
"My Dad taught it to me," Annie said flatly.
"Your Dad taught you that? That's amazing!" Eren enthused.
"Don't get too excited about it," Annie mumbled. "Hand to hand combat doesn't count toward our eventual ranking."
"Why's that?" Eren asked, confused.
Annie lunged toward Eren with the wooden dagger in her hand and held it above his neck. "Are you really that naive!? The rankings are arbitrary. Think about it. Why else would only the top ten graduates be eligible for the Military Police. Does it make any sense that the further away you are from the action, the better you are at killing Titans?" Annie spat, before regaining her composure a little. "You can play soldier as much as you want, but it doesn't matter one way or another. You can keep being naive and believing this will help, or you can accept the reality of the situation."
Annie got off of Eren and turned around to walk to her clearing. She looked back and noticed Eren looked quite dumbstruck by what had happened, but didn't appear angry or upset with her. Why isn't he upset? I basically just destroyed his delusion. She then turned back around and resumed walking to the clearing to resume her solo practice.
Once she was back at the clearing, she started violently attacking one of her target tree stumps, which she had attached a crudely done drawing of Mikasa to. Why the hell is Eren interested in my fighting technique!? He's Mr. "I'm going to join the Survey Corps and get eaten by Titans on my first mission"! He doesn't really have any reason for wanting to learn hand to hand combat! Annie pulled back from her target stump and looked at the damage she had done. The drawing of Mikasa was badly ripped and the stump had several cracks in it. She dug a new drawing out from her pocket, this time of Sasha, and replaced the drawing of Mikasa with it.
He probably just thinks of it as a game or some shit like that. Annie paused and thought about it more. Maybe he's genuinely interested in learning more about fighting. If he is, would it be so bad if I offered to teach him some of what I know? I wouldn't be compromising my mission by teaching him my technique. Annie sighed deeply and began walking back to the training area, knowing that lunch was about to start. Dad wouldn't be opposed to teaching someone interested in learning his technique. Why should I be?
Once inside the canteen, Annie found a spot at an empty table and claimed it. She realized she was early to lunch, but decided against leaving the canteen as it could look suspicious. A few others were there, including Jean Kirshtein and his close friend Marco Bott. They were talking about Eren and his stupidity for wanting to join the Survey Corps, which she didn't care to listen to. A minute or so later, Bertholt and Reiner came in and sat with Annie.
"You realize I'm still sore from sparring with you," Reiner muttered as he sat down.
Bertholt began chuckling at the thought of Annie, barely a meter and a half tall, flipping a large person like Reiner. Annie glared at Bertholt who quickly stopped laughing. Reiner grumbled from pain then walked up to the queue forming by the food station. Bertholt, seeing the opportunity, moved over a seat to be closer to Annie, who gave him an annoyed look.
"What you want?" Annie hissed.
"Well, I was wondering, if...ah..." Bertholt began.
Suddenly Sasha's voice sounded from a few tables over "FIGHT!" she shouted, drawing the word out.
Bertholt got up to try to break up whoever was fighting while Annie remained in her seat to watch. She looked over and saw Eren and Jean arguing, with Jean about to raise his hand to punch Eren. What Annie saw next was like something out of a dream. Eren reached for Jean's hand before he could land a blow, then Eren quickly shifted his weight and landed a blow with his foot to Jean's calf. He used my technique! I can't believe that Eren actually paid attention to our fight earlier. Maybe Eren has more to him than I thought. Annie felt herself smile, and not just a small smile. A genuine, emotional smile.
After the crowd had dispersed from the fight, Annie walked up to Eren, who was celebrating with Mikasa and Armin. Mikasa eyed her cautiously while Armin gave her a faint smile. Eren acknowledged her with a nod.
"Hey Annie. I was telling these two about how I learned that move from our fight earlier," Eren said in a proud tone. "Also, are you smiling? I've never seen you smile before!"
Annie touched her hair nervously and blushed. "Um, yeah...I don't smile much...but, it was great that you used the technique from the fight. I really like that you used it," Annie said awkwardly. "Anyway, I was wondering if you'd like me to kick your ass sometime again..."
Eren and Armin laughed. "I'd say you could easily take me anytime. You're probably the strongest fighter I know," Eren said, grinning.
Mikasa glared at Annie, who was now blushing from embarrassment even more. "Not what I meant. Just...never mind..." Annie sighed, walking back to her table, where Bertholt and Reiner were still talking.
Once back at the table, Annie buried her head in her hands. Bertholt and Reiner looked at each other, wondering what happened.
"Hey, Annie, everything ok?" Bertholt asked nervously.
Annie lifted her head up and gave him an angry look. She then sighed slightly and felt herself calming down. "Sure, I guess things are fine," she said in a monotone.
Reiner got up and left the table, fearing Annie was still angry. He didn't want to be on the receiving end of her lashing out. Bertholt attempted to move closer to Annie, feeling himself getting sweaty from nerves.
"Anyway, Annie, what I wanted to ask you earlier is if you'd like to-" Bertholt was cut off by Eren, who had walked up to the table.
"Hey, um, Annie, can we talk outside for a minute?" Eren asked.
Annie got up from the table without replying, and followed Eren out to the porch of the canteen. Bertholt watched the two exit together and sighed disappointedly.
The sun was beginning to set and the recruits were able to enjoy a brief moment of downtime while the rest of their lunch and freetime block wound down. Eren took a seat on one of the steps, while Annie leaned against the post of the stairs leading to the canteen.
"So...I really do want to thank you for sparring with me today, and kicking my ass. It was worth it to be able to shut Horse Face up for once," Eren said, smiling at her.
"Of course," Annie replied in a monotone.
"I know you don't really believe that this armed combat training is worth it, but I can see how good you are at it. I'd really like to be able to learn some fight moves from you" Eren replied.
Annie smiled lightly. "I was going to ask you at the table if you wanted to learn a thing or two. You seemed interested after our match today, even though you were pretty horrible."
Eren laughed a little. "Yeah, I guess I was. But I'm sure if I work with you I'll get a lot better"
Annie smiled at the complement and gazed off onto the horizon. Finally she turned to the boy and resumed speaking. "If practicing with me means that much to you, I'll be willing to work with you."
The two smiled at each other over their new found connection, then Eren got up from his seat on the porch. "I'm really looking forward to training with you! When should we start?" he asked.
Annie thought about it for a second then answered. "Tomorrow night. Meet me after dinner and I'll take you to a place where we can train."
