A/N: I had SO much fun with this chapter in general, partly because it takes place surrounding some of my favorite scenes and sequences in the anime. The Kenny/Levi chase/fight through Trost? Animation perfection.

Disclaimer: I do not own AOT/SNK or any of the characters used in this fic.

CHAPTER 3: EDGES

A moonless night held the city of Trost in its merciless clutches and Levi was all edges.

Things had gone from bad to utter shit real quick after the Scouts had recovered Eren from Berthold and Reiner.

In that time, they had become fugitives and Erwin had been arrested until they handed over Eren and Historia.

Levi had also learned the truth, or at least some watered-down version of it, about the titans being people. "Great. Perfect. I've spent all this time, all this energy, and the things I've been carving through like carion… are people?" he had asked Hange. Even after having a week to digest that bit of information, it didn't sit with him any better.

There was also Pastor Nick's untimely and inconvenient demise that had set everything into motion. Levi hadn't been lying when he said he was impressed by Pastor Nick. He had personally ripped out plenty of nails and seen plenty of people cave (and a few resist), so he knew the strength that took.

And of course, Eren and Historia were gone, Hange was off somewhere out of reach, and Levi had managed to get the three squad members she entrusted him with all killed.

As for his squad, he had one soldier steeped in guilt over killing someone, another steeped in guilt for hesitating and forcing the former to do so, and one practically jumping out of her skin because they lost a certain titan-turning human.

And then there was him…steeped in guilt about having been unable to stop any of it. What a fine, ragtag bunch of fucking failures they were.

In short, everything had gone to shit, all because his stupid plan had backfired and landed them in this mess. It was his fault they were taken. Go to Trost, he had said. Being able to use our 3DMG will make it the safest place to be. Except that Kenny had shown up with a deadly new upgrade to the gear that made Levi's skill look like child's play. Even being the maneuver gear prodigy he was, Levi was powerless to stop them. To stop him.

Kenny was right. He hadn't changed much at all. He was still just a powerless little runt.

So there they were, stuck cowering in a warehouse that smelled like rat piss and potatoes. But as bad as things were, Levi knew they were about to get much worse.

"Captain." The stiff greeting snapped him out of his angsty reverie. He looked up to see Mikasa taking a seat on the barrel beside him. Her greeting came as a shock considering Mikasa had been giving him the silent treatment since he had told Armin the person he had been was gone for good. "Why would you say that?" she asked incredulously.

Why?

Because it was the truth, whether any of them liked it or not, and the faster Armin accepted that, the faster he could regain a level head. As much as Levi hated to admit it, he needed that brat's sharp mind for what was to come. He couldn't have him distracted.

Maybe Mikasa was right. Maybe he had been too harsh in saying that. After all, he hadn't been lying when he told Jean he had no idea who was in the right. His moral high ground really was shot to hell.

"You're supposed to be resting," he said passively.

"I can't sleep. I'll take watch, if you want, so you can get some instead."

"Like I'd be able to sleep either."

Mikasa grew silent and tucked her chin down in the red scarf perpetually cladding her neck. She's thinking about him, he thought with a disappointed sigh.

Aside from the strategic potential of having a titan on their side and what that meant for the future of humanity, Levi didn't feel particularly strong about the moron, one way or the other. He admired the brat's determination, if only he could harness it with much consistency.

Mikasa, on the other hand, lived for him. He didn't know why but it didn't matter. If Eren was the key to Mikasa's happiness, then Levi would protect him with his life. Screw humanity.

Besides, it was not only his fault Eren had been captured in the first place, but he had been the one to stop Mikasa from charging after him. "Let 'em go! We're running fumes."

"NOOO!" Mikasa screamed, like a wounded animal with nothing left to lose, and it took all of Levi's strength to restrain her. "EREN!"

Just remembering the desperation in her screech made the hair on Levi's neck stand up. "Quit pouting. We'll get Eren back, I promise."

Mikasa looked up sharply. "I wasn't– How did you know I was thinking about–"

"It's obvious, isn't it? When aren't you thinking of him?" Levi hoped the words didn't come out too bitter.

We all get that you love him but try not to act crazy. Levi's uncomfortable sentiment from that day returned to Mikasa like a blaring siren. She buried her face deeper in her scarf, so that only the fresh scar on her high right cheekbone peeked out, hoping somewhere between its scarlet color and the glowing lantern light, Levi wouldn't notice the blush on her face. Was that how everyone saw her?

It was true, she did love Eren, but not in the way he had implied. Mikasa's love for Eren was much more complex than that, more complex than even a sibling bond. Eren was the entire reason that she was still alive, so her love for Eren wasn't so much romantic as…worshipful. Like the love between a savior and the saved.

"Looks like the cut above your eye is bleeding again. You should let me stitch it up," Mikasa said, desperately wanting to change the subject.

"With all that medical expertise you have, Ackerman?"

She rose and rifled through her bag for a small medkit. "There's a lot you don't know about me, Captain."

Levi's hackles rose as she pulled her barrel over and sat directly in front of him, mere inches from his face. Indeed. Gently, she brushed his hair aside to inspect the wound, her cool skin sending an arc of electricity down Levi's rigid spine.

"It doesn't look deep, but we should get it cleaned and stitched since even mild head wounds bleed so heavily."

Ripping a corner off her cloak, she turned to him, "Don't suppose you have that flask you always carry on you?"

She wasn't supposed to know about that. Levi only took nips from it when people were really getting on his nerves… and he was sure they couldn't see him. "Tch. Drinking when the stakes are high like this? What kind of man do you think I am?" She glared at him, not buying it for a second. He signed, resigned but amused at how sharp she was. "Left pocket of my jacket."

She walked over to where Levi's jacket was folded neatly on the ground and pulled the small, tarnished silver flask from it.

"Now don't waste it. That's all I have."

She rolled her eyes, pressed a wad of the rag against the mouth of the flask, and tipped it. "Shut up, runt. You have Dimo Reeves on your side now. I'm sure you can…convince him to get you more." He didn't like the way she said convince...or the way she had called him a runt.

"I know the Scouts are more or less not recognized as a military entity at the moment, but I am still your captain, you kno–Fuck!" he hissed, as she pressed the whiskey-soaked cloth into the torn flesh of his forehead. The sting radiated down and made the entire left of his face feel like it was on fire.

"Suck it up. Wasn't it you who told me to get used to pain? To fight through it?" Recalling that memory felt like a slap in the face and Levi settled into a broody silence as she continued blotting the wound.

Once she had cleaned it to her satisfaction, she pulled out a small needle and string. She threaded it carefully, though it took her a few tries. Angry at her or not, Levi couldn't help but be a little amused at the way her face screwed up in focus as she tried to find the eye in the dim light. He noticed details he never had before, how her nostrils flared when she focused and the way her lips twitched across a thin, taught line each time the thread missed the eye. If he forgot she was about to poke him with the thing, it was downright cute.

Once threaded, she hovered the needle over the captain's wound. Her hands felt oddly unsteady as she made the first puncture, too deep, causing a soft groan to rumble in Levi's throat.

"Sorry," she said when he winced again as the needle sank clumsily into his flesh a second time. "I used to stitch up Eren and Armin's wounds in training all the time, but I haven't had much practice lately."

"It's fine," he said dismissively, focusing on maintaining a placid expression with each prick so that she didn't feel like she was hurting him. "Where did you learn how to do this?"

She was quiet for a moment, focusing as she pulled another stitch through his skin. "When I was a kid, I used to watch Doctor Jaeger with his patients. I always thought when I grew up, I wanted to be a doctor, someone who saved people, just like the Jaegers had saved me."

Sometimes Levi forgot the Hell she had lived through. He didn't know details, but he knew enough. Enough to see that she had been forced to grow up and confront the harsh realities of their world a lot sooner than her classmates. Enough to see how sad it made her. Enough to understand that in many ways, they were the same.

Maybe that was why she was the only one who hadn't looked fearful when he'd told them they would be dead if they hesitated in dealing the killing stroke to Kenny's men. The only one brave enough to answer with a resounding "Yes, sir!" She wasn't afraid of taking human life because she had already done so, already gotten blood on her hands. Like him, Mikasa never had much choice about becoming a killer.

An urge rose from deep within him, to grab her face with both hands and kiss her until he had lifted the veil of pain and tragedy that cloaked her every waking second. Maybe if he had figured out how to do that for himself first, he would have.

Instead, he asked, "How old were you? When your parents were murdered, I mean."

She thought for a moment. "Nine, I think."

"And when you joined the military?"

"Twelve."

That made her, what, 16? If that. Fuck, Levi, you perverted bastard. She's a goddamn kid. Sure, a kid who had signed up to spend her likely short life slaughtering titans before she even had tits, but still a kid nonetheless.

"Since we're in a sharing mood, what's the underground like?" Mikasa asked.

Levi snorted, unable to stop a scowl from twisting his expression. "Filthy, in every sense of the word. It's a distrusting place where people survive through degeneracy and trampling upon their fellow man. It's a place where men are born just waiting to die."

"Is that why you're so obsessed with cleaning?" she teased.

"When you grow up on streets covered in literal shit and sleep on piss-soaked blankets, yeah, safe to say I found solace in clean things by the time I got out."

Mikasa was silent for a few moments, debating whether to ask the next question burning her mind. "And Kenny? How does he fit in all of it?"

The Levi everyone knew wouldn't have answered, would have told her to fuck off and get some sleep. But he wanted to keep talking to her, To know things about her and for her to want to know things about him, even if it meant giving up secrets about himself no one else knew.

Normally, she made him feel wild and out of control. But here, on the precipice of what could very well be the end of the Scouts, and humanity as a result, her presence steadied him, like a drug providing temporary relief to an addict. It soothed the violent itch in his bones to do something self-destructive. Not that what he was doing wasn't self-destructive in its own right.

"Kenny raised me. Took me under his wing when I didn't have anywhere else to go."

"What about your parents?"

"My mother was a whore. Eventually, that caught up with her and she got sick with something she couldn't shake. No way to track down the sperm bank that was my father. I don't even think she knew." Her eyes flickered to meet his. For some reason, Mikasa felt bad for the captain. They may have both lost their parents, but at least she had fond memories of them both while they were alive. Levi didn't seem so lucky. "Don't look at me like that, Ackerman," he snapped.

"Like what?" she said, redirecting her attention to the jagged line of stitches she was now tying off.

"You know damn well what. Like you're feeling sorry for me. I didn't tell you that to have you pity me. You're lucky I told you at all," he said irritably but his annoyance blew over as fast as a summer storm.

She blushed. Even in the dim light cast by the lantern between them, it didn't escape Levi's notice. Not with her this close. His stomach tightened with that familiar knot of desire to make her blush more. Stop, he commanded himself, then signed and ran a hand through his greasy, blood-matted hair. What Levi wouldn't give for a bath.

"In a fucked up way, I'm grateful to the bastard. If nothing else, Kenny made me a survivor. I guarantee I wouldn't still be alive doing what I do had I not learned from the best."

"Do you really believe that?" she asked, her breath tickling his ear. "Or would you change it? If you could go back, would you pick a normal, dull life?"

Levi got the feeling she was less prying into Levi's mind than she was her own, asking herself if everything she had endured was for the best.

He let out a breathy laugh, one he hoped didn't sound as shaky as it felt. "Fuck if I know."

Mikasa had finished stitching the cut, dabbing it once more for good measure before stepping back. An ache rose through his body, increasing with each step of dead space added between them. The gravity of their situation crashed back to him, as if he had just woken up from a dream induced by the only drug that provided him any comfort anymore: her.

Edges. Levi existed on edges. He refined and sharpened them, knowing it help him alive. The truth was, everyone in this Godforsaken world lived on an edge, but when you forgot about that simple fact and tried to walk without regard for it, that's when you fell right off into the abyss.

Still, this particular edge felt extra precarious and Levi hoped that if he fell, he at least wouldn't drag his squad, or rather her, off with him.

"Where are they taking Eren and Krista?" Levi demanded yet again, shoving his boot inside the interior MP's mouth. A handful of teeth came clattering out as he removed it. Only Mikasa looked unperturbed, her face unreadable as always.

Levi was acutely aware that his team was watching him, trying to hide the horror on their faces. They knew he had tortured Djel Sannes while they were in hiding, but actually watching Levi in action was something else entirely. So cold. So callous. So utterly beyond terrifying, they started to wonder if they were on the right side of history here.

But he would find Eren and Historia. He had a promise to keep and he was getting tired of this. In his impatience, Levi asked again and when he failed to answer, pinned the man face-first against the tree, hearing a sickening snap! as the man's arm broke cleanly at the humorous.

"Kenny Ackerman doesn't like to make his business known," the man gasped, blood dripping from his empty tooth sockets with each syllable.

"Ackerman?" Levi breathed the word, but his surprise was evident. He slid his eyes sideways to Mikasa, who looked up sharply, her unreadable mask crumbling into confusion. "I know Kenny. That his last name?"

When it became clear Levi wasn't going to get anything else useful from the coward, he backed off, barking a few quick orders to his team. "Fan out and watch the perimeter. I wouldn't be surprised if they try to ambush us tonight."

Levi turned quickly and stalked off through the woods, a rifle cradled in his arms. After a few minutes, he noticed he had company. Mikasa followed a few meters back and to his left, looking at him somewhere between curiously and warily, as if he were a possibly rabid animal that she couldn't tell whether or not was going to turn on her.

Levi hated that look, but he understood it. She had just watched him break a man's arm and knock out half his teeth without so much as batting an eye. Then there was yesterday's battle with Kenny and his men. Twelve. That was the number of people he had killed in the span of ten minutes. If that.

He recalled the sound his 3DMG grapple made as it pierced one of the men's throats before Levi had used his gurgling soon-to-be-corpse like a shield only to cut down two more. It didn't matter if they were Kenny's men. Men were men. The hard truth was that Levi wasn't any different than his mentor and it left the taste of bile in his mouth.

"Dammit, are you insane?!" the interior MP now slumped against the tree in sheer exhaustion had cried.

"Maybe."

Maybe in-fucking-deed, Levi thought.

"Why did you let Marlo and Hitch go? Or at least Hitch? I wouldn't have thought it like you to trust anyone to keep their word, not when it could compromise everything we've worked so hard for."

"Believe it or not, I don't actually like killing people enough to do it unnecessarily. I know my actions today don't help my case, but I'm not a monster."

"I know that," she said, too quickly for Levi not to let the reassurance squeeze his chest a little bit. But before he was forced to respond, Mikasa stopped dead. "I think I hear something."

Things were looking up, even if up was directly up a titan's asshole.

The rustling Mikasa heard was actually just a messenger informing them that the Scouts had been exonerated, the false king overthrown, and Erwin released from MP custody. On top of that, upon meeting back up with Hange, they finally had an inkling of where Eren and Historia were.

But that didn't mean there wasn't a good chance none of them would live to see the sunrise.

"Alright, is everyone here ready?" Levi hovered over the trap door on the floor of the abandoned church. The door that would supposedly lead them to Eren and Historia and God only knew what else. "Because you're all about to dirty your hands."

Everyone was silent but the looks of resolve on their faces, especially Mikasa's, sent a shiver of pride through him. This was his squad now, and dammit if he wasn't going to make sure as many of them walked away from this as possible. It wouldn't be like the last time. "Guess that's a yes. Hange, take point; I'll take the rear. And quit laughing, Springer! Now move out!"

One by one, they dropped into the yawning black darkness: Hange, Jean, Connie, Sasha, Armin, until it was just Levi and Mikasa. Mikasa moved toward the trap door when Levi held her back.

"I want to talk to you." There was something blazing in his eyes Mikasa couldn't quite place. Something intense and desperate. Fear, maybe?

"I want you to stay the hell away from Kenny Ackerman, got it? You are not to engage unless absolutely necessary."

Mikasa thought back to the cart ride here. "You should understand," Levi had warned them all, "this is Kenny the Ripper. If he's there, he's our biggest obstacle. In terms of threat level, it's like you'll be fighting me. Or wait, with those weapons of his, he'll be stronger."

"Then he's unbeatable. At least for us," Sasha said anxiously.

Connie piped up, "Maybe we should wait...meet up with other soldiers.

"No chance in Hell!" Mikasa snarled and could have sworn she saw Levi suppress a small smile.

But still… Mikasa couldn't deny that she was a little uneasy about sharing a last name with the man. He certainly seemed related to her dad's side of the family, but how, she didn't know and likely never would.

Of course, there was also the other haunting similarity Levi had mentioned. "Tell me this, have you ever suddenly felt a… power awaken inside you? This happened for Kenny Ackerman as well. Suddenly, out of nowhere, he felt an absurd amount of strength surging through him and in that moment he knew just what he needed to do."

"Ackerman, do you have wax in your ears? I am ordering you to leave Kenny to me."

"But I'm perfectly capable–"

"No repeats of the Female Titan, you hear me?" Mikasa flushed with shame and reluctantly nodded. "Good. Now one more thing."

In two strides, he closed the gap between them and had his lips pressed against hers before Mikasa knew what was happening. Or rather, before Levi could let cowardice and good sense talk him out of letting it happen.

Just as Mikasa finally regained enough sense to start kissing back, he had pulled away but kept his eyes locked on hers. They burned with an intensity that both scared and aroused her. "Don't you fucking die. That's an order," he said, then vanished down the trapdoor.

A/N: Ah, the first kiss! Don't worry, there's more of that to come. If you have a few minutes to spare, please review and let me know what you think.