LAWLESS
Chapter 8. Words
The artificial bird came out of his hole and sang a melodic cuckoo! Cuckoo! It then came back to hiding inside its ornate wooden refuge. Mikasa heard Levi swearing under his breath and muttering something about the damn clock.
"And well?" Kenny inquired, lighting up his pipe as he rested his boots on the desk.
Levi, standing beside his uncle, crossed his arms over his chest and pierced the girl with a glance. He seemed to be asking her the same question.
Mikasa remained stoic on the chair in front of both of them, "And well, what?" she asked.
"We know about Trost," Levi said with some weariness. He was upset, but his frown revealed concern.
"Which thing, exactly?" Mikasa hoped that neither her voice nor her tone betrayed her own anxiety. If they found out that she has been arrested because she couldn't control her own impulses of…
"The idiots that you killed were members of a big drug trafficker gang," Kenny said, not beating around the bush as he put his feet on the ground and slipped his thumb over his beard.
Mikasa almost let out a sigh of relief when she learned it was about the fight with that disgusting group and she mentally thanked Annie for not being nosy.
Levi narrowed his eyes, but remained quiet as Kenny told Mikasa that the trafficker gang realized that the carnage was a work of nothing more and nothing less than an Ackerman. The problem lied in that, from now on, they will become a pain in the ass if they got the balls to bother their contraband transporting merchants.
Even though Annie tried to keep the real identity and the false identity of Mikasa protected, the way in which the matter with the narcs was handled pointed out that the victim was not a common person. They heard they were mulling over two options: the first one being that the victim was a member of the Ackerman clan, while the second one considered that said victim could be a protegée of the clan. All those who operated in the underworld knew the Ackermans were without a doubt the most skilled and lethal ones, and that only them could be able to throw such a performance.
"They don't know about Eren, do they?" Mikasa stood up, thinking about the incidents of that day, worried things could have gone wrong for Eren.
Traffickers.
Thinking… that things could have ended in such a terrible way for her if she wouldn't have been able to defend herself.
Traffickers. The damn word repeated itself a thousand times inside her head and a sensation of vulnerability took her over.
'Drug traffickers', she said to herself, 'not human traffickers'. But one thing didn't take away the other. As far as she knew, they could devote themselves perfectly to both businesses. She felt like throwing up and unconsciously brought a hand to her mouth.
"No, but one of the bastards was captured alive and was babbling stuff about you," Levi explained cautiously, surrounding the desk to get to her, "We took care of him some days ago, we have that under control."
Mikasa nodded, frowning as she embraced herself and rubbed her arms slightly with a lost expression. Levi made her sit down.
"Passiflora tea, right?" Kenny asked before leaving the office, not waiting for an answer. He took a quick glance at the girl and let out a curse as he fastened his pace.
Sometimes he wished Mikasa was a boy. That Kuchel - his own sister - would have born with a dick between her legs. Maybe that way, at least, she would be still alive.
He clenched his teeth.
Years ago, when Levi arrived with small Mikasa in between his arms, Kenny had the certainty that things would get complicated. Women were a magnet for problems. Being born a woman in this fucking world meant guaranteed problems.
He remembered that pale girl with sad and strangely curious little eyes, trying to sneak a peek of the inside of his office, with her hair almost as black as his own soul. Back then, for Kenny, it was incredible that there could be someone even shorter than Levi in that place.
"What are you doing here? Whatcha want?" he demanded, frowning.
"What is fuck?" she asked, blinking.
Kenny raised an eyebrow.
"Ask Levi," he said, trying to close the door, but Mikasa crossed a foot in its trajectory to impede it.
Well, well.
"I already did it and he said, 'ask Kenny'", the girl complained.
The man rolled his eyes and let her in. He saw the hint of a little smile on Mikasa's lips and felt a slight and unusual warmth inside his chest. Ugh, he despised her! He hoped she grew up fast and left the place. She's been almost two years around there, annoying him with her damn presence.
The midget rested both arms on the desk as if she was waiting for Kenny to sit down at the other side and give her the long explanation she needed. Sadly, it ended up being shorter than what she imagined it to be and she continued understanding nothing.
Mikasa mimicked the gesture that Kenny had just done with his hands. She pressed the tip of her index finger with the tip of her thumb, forming a circle, and then she used the index finger of the other hand to trespass that circle.
"This is fuck?" she asked with mistrust, "and you say it's the same as to fuck?"
"Yeah," he said, pushing her towards the exit, "Now go bother somewhere else. I'm busy."
The girl shrugged and repeated the strange gesture. It didn't make sense. She imitated it several times.
"Stop it!" Kenny scolded her, separating her hands. 'Goddamn brats', "If you do that again I'll give you the same haircut Levi wears, did ya hear me, shoddy midget?" Mikasa's disgusted grimace made him double up with laughter.
Kenny remembered that he had Mikasa visiting his office again a few weeks later on her twelfth birthday. It was late at night when he and Levi were talking about important matters. None of them understood what was Mikasa doing down there in the lair, when she should have been sleeping in the house, upstairs.
She was wearing one of her long pink pajamas that now revealed some weird dark stains on the lower area. Her hair was stirred, face pale and her mouth half-open with a terrified expression. Her hands were resting on her underbelly.
"I'm bleeding," she said with a trembling voice. It was obvious she'd been crying.
It was then that they realized the stain on the floor and the trickles of blood that slipped between her legs.
Kenny's eyed widened. Levi hurried up to get to where the child was standing. He pressed her shoulders and started to ask her what happened and who hurt her.
"Who? Tell me right now, Mikasa, because I'm going to kill him," Levi threatened with the coldest and calmest voice Kenny had ever heard coming from him.
The Ripper put a hand on one of the best knives that he had on his desk. He had just polished and sharpened them. The motherfucker that dared to touch Mikasa would die that night, but before that they would take care of skinning him as he still breathed.
The girl was shaking her head after every question Levi threw at her, and she writhed slightly.
"No o-one, I haven't seen anyone," she said between her teeth after another spasm of pain, "When I went out of the bed I saw that there was blood and I got scared when I realized from where… Ugh, shit, am I dying? It hurts…"
Kenny let out a sudden laugh and Levi pierced him with his stare, outraged.
"What the hell?"
Before his nephew could give him a punch or something worse, Kenny raised his hands and continued laughing.
"The hell are you laughing at?" demanded Levi, clenching his teeth.
"It's the damn period!" Kenny said, finally. He released all of the tension he'd accumulated through his laugh, "It's the fucking period, it happens to every girl."
"Period?" Mikasa asked, confused, and her sight went down to the threatening stain of blood that she left on the ground.
"Look, I have no idea how it works, I just know that it happened to my sister too," Kenny explained, clearing his throat after he controlled his giggles. "It's women's stuff. Women are weird creatures so… well, one of them should explain it to you, I don't know. Traute could explain it to you, for example, she's one of the weirdest, huh?"
Levi blinked. He had no fucking clue about that period shit, obviously.
"Stop looking at me that way. Your mom also stained her bed, more than once," Kenny informed with a grimace, "I think she bled every month for about a whole week and she survived. Girls are tough," he pointed at Mikasa with his index finger and offered her a clumsy smile, "You're not gonna die, brat."
And of course, the brat didn't die.
After Traute explained to Mikasa how that women stuff worked, she suggested to Kenny that he get a ton of compresses, some herbs to drink as infusions and other things that could aid Mikasa during those bloody moments. Kenny had even ordered a surprised Levi to get a ton of chocolates and then realized that Traute had devoured a lot of them. She alleged innocence with that typical indifference of hers, even though she had bits of chocolate in one of the corner of her lips.
Years passed by and they almost always realized that Mikasa was on her days of bleeding because they saw her drinking specific infusions and sporadically rubbing her belly in the middle of training. There were days where she didn't train in an intense way, but she never ducked out unless she was feeling awful. Sometimes she turned more irritable or a bit more sensitive, but nothing really drastic happened to her. With the exception, maybe, that she hit way more strongly and that sometimes she got a pimple in the middle of her forehead, like a unicorn. If Kenny mentioned that detail, Mikasa would give him a killer look. Once he had the fantastic idea of making a joke about her being a Military Police infiltrate because of her pimple: he earned a savage kick in the shinbone that made him leak the most painful tears of his life.
Weird creatures, women.
When Mikasa turned fifteen, besides her physical and academic training, Kenny added a teacher who would be in charge of training her in the use and abuse of female ruses. Despite being magnets of problems, women were capable of having incredibly effective weapons that worked in their favor. It was of tremendous importance that the youngest of the Ackerman was able to use these tools with the purpose of obtaining big advantages when she interacted with or faced men. The advantages went from getting something in exchange without having to resort to violence, to using female ruses as a distraction to come out of a dangerous situation gracefully.
Kenny had no doubt that her niece had put these theories into practice the moment those perverts approached her at the tavern and took her with them. She was an intelligent and quick-witted girl, she surely used everything she has learned. She knew how to distract them, she knew how to annihilate them, and thanks to that she freed herself from a situation that could have traumatized her more than she already was. She had suffered enough in that short life of hers.
Unlike Levi, Kenny didn't know what to do with people that cried or were in the middle of an emotional crisis. He had always been a witness of the start of those crises but never of the whole development of them, and Mikasa had suffered a good amount of crises since she had lived with them. Kenny knew that they were triggered by some memories, words and objects… He damned himself mentally; he should have used another word to refer to the fucking drug traffickers, or maybe just mention the inconveniences of the results of Mikasa's encounter with those bastards.
He came back to his office bringing a steamy mug of passiflora tea, that was supposed to help her calm down, just as Grisha Jaeger suggested them some time ago. Kenny thought that maybe he should have asked if she also needed to drink the other herbs, the ones that helped her to alleviate her girly pains. He should have brought a bit of everything, including chocolates, just in case.
He observed her with attention and he asked himself how many years she had now, eighteen? Nineteen? The brat had grown up so much so quickly. Ironically, she still looked like a child when she wore that demeanor in between being terrified and anguished as she pressed her legs against her chest.
Kenny gave the mug to Levi, who was seated on the floor near Mikasa, and left them alone.
x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x
When Eren arrived that afternoon to the Ackerman's lair with Mikasa, Levi had been waiting for them at the entrance of the empty mess-hall with his arms crossed and his typical annoyed expression.
"Go to Kenny's office," Levi ordered Mikasa after a quick look. She hesitated for an instant but did what he said without saying a word. Levi did a gesture to Eren, "and you go to wait for dinner," he said.
Eren looked for an isolated table and waited. The same old faces were arriving, and he knew almost everyone there by sight. Most of them never said anything to him, just a few exchanged some words or superfluous conversations with him, like the little group that was having a quiet dinner at a short distance and who had not given him even a glance so far. It was that idiot, Bernard - who kept the two broken fingers of his left hand immobilized, and whose eye has been healing after the beating given by Levi - the corpulent Luther and Volker, the redhead.
It was always difficult to estimate time underground, but Eren had eaten already and to him, it seemed like dinner time was coming to an end. There was no sign of Mikasa yet. She didn't usually eat there, though he thought that maybe they could have dinner together.
He felt tired and was sleepy, and he got the impression that he took a nap with his head resting in one hand, because he felt a small fright when his arm bent a bit and his head fell onwards. He saw the soup a few centimeters away from his face and moved it to the side, straightening and rubbing his eyes.
He saw Kenny sneaking briefly through the mess-hall, where he did a short exchange with the man that played the waiter.
Eren frowned when he noted the serious demeanor of the Ripper. Maybe there was a serious problem.
"Huh, hey, Eren… are you going to drink your soup?" a feminine voice asked suddenly by his side.
A girl with big brown eyes was smiling at him awkwardly. It was the first time he saw her around there. Actually, it was the first girl he saw down there besides Mikasa and an old lady that seemed to work in the kitchen.
"I'm not going to drink it, it's cold already," he replied as he realized about the short, close-shaven guy sitting in front of him. He hadn't seen him around there until now.
"Hi, Eren Jaeger," he greeted him with friendliness, "I'm Connie Springer and this is Sasha Braus, we're part of the Legion."
Sasha took Eren's soup away, drank it in one big sip and cleaned her mouth with a cloth napkin that she wore hanging from her neck. The girl thanked him and Eren nodded, turning to Connie.
"From the Legion?" he repeated, raising an eyebrow.
Armin would have already given him a pat on the back murmuring 'I told you' with his worst know-it-all tone if he was there. The rumor of the existence of the Legion was almost as shady as the rumor about the Ackerman and Kenny, their star figure.
It was said that the Legion was a group that differed politically from the Monarchy and the noblemen and that it was against the established order, but their existence has never been confirmed. The rebel group had the character of an urban myth. They've never announced nor said anything in a public way. At most people used to attribute some graffiti on the walls of some houses and the organization of small protests in which all the assistants ended up incarcerated for public disorder, though just for a brief period of time.
Connie and Sasha looked like common youngsters, like the ones you found in the street rejoicing coarsely about the nonsense they have done or said. Nothing else.
"What are two members of the Legion doing here, with the Ackerman?" Eren inquired. The word Legion sounded way too dramatic and definitely didn't match with the pair of grinning teenagers that were with him.
"The Commander sent us because we lack 'discipline'" Sasha said, cringing at the pronunciation of the word, "Though maybe because we can be useful here as well. Me, at least."
"Hey! I can be useful too," Connie defended himself.
Sasha grinned mockingly, "Really? And how?"
"Well, in first place everyone knows I'm a genius. In second place, I'm very agile and hard to catch," he said inflating his chest and giving a proud tap with the fist in the center of it, "Or haven't you seen how all these guys end up tired after trying to get me and hit me for hours?"
"Oh yeah, you're right! Being a shorty helps you to be more slippery than someone of normal height," Sasha gave him some pats in the head and Connie pushed her hands away.
"So annoying. I've told you a million times that this is not my definitive height," he said looking at Eren sideways, a bit ashamed, then he faced Sasha again, "My dad is a very tall dude and he used to be as… short as me at this same age. You'll see in a few years, dummy."
"What's your skill, Sasha?" Eren asked, smiling involuntarily at the familiarity with which they got along and at how relaxed they seemed.
"I'm very skillful in archery," she said as she pointed and tensed an invisible bow.
"She has an amazing aim," seconded Connie, throwing a bit of bread into the air. Sasha devoured it in a very weird jump, "and a big appetite."
"So I see," Eren nodded. These strange guys were very nice. He gave them a glance and smiled at them, but then he remembered Kenny's seriousness and the fact that he still didn't know anything about Mikasa, so he ended up taking a look at the mess-hall.
"Are you waiting for someone?" Connie looked around and smirked, "Your girlfriend, perhaps?"
"Ah! When is she coming? We want to meet the Ackerman girl," Sasha said before giving a nibble to a big baguette.
"Uhm, she and I are not-" Eren started explaining in a low voice.
"Is she pretty?" Connie interrupted him.
"Does she prefer sweet or salty things?" asked Sasha.
"You've kissed already and more than that, right?"
"Connie! That's rude to ask," Sasha scolded him. Then she addressed Eren with a big smile, "What's important is to know when are you getting married because my dad never let me attend a wedding, and now I can totally go to one."
Eren let out a hysteric laugh when Volker, Luther and Bernard turned around to stare at him from the other table with curiosity.
"Guys, look, we're not-" Eren started again.
"I've only gone to my neighbor's marriage," Connie said, interrupting him once again, "It was awful."
"At least you've gone to one. My parents married when I wasn't even born," Sasha said.
"Really? Mine too!" Connie said.
"Eren, can I be the godmother?"
"I want to be the godfather!"
"If you want I can hunt a couple of wild boars for the banquet."
"A couple? Damn, Sasha."
"It's very little? I can also hunt some turkeys and-"
"It's just you're a hog."
"And you, a shrimp!"
"How many times do I have to explain to you that…?"
Both teenagers kept arguing noisily and making suggestions about a possible wedding. Eren had remained silent, shrinking little by little on his seat without realizing and bringing his hands near his face. The few members of the clan that still were in the mess-hall already turned in the direction of his table, interested in the curious subject of the conversation. Some looked incredibly serious, probably annoyed by the hurly-burly, while others gave him mocking smiles.
In the right moment when Sasha and Connie started proposing names for the future children that - according to them - he and Mikasa would have, Levi appeared with a not-friendly-at-all face.
"I suggest that you call them 'Shut the fuck up'", Levi said, giving Connie a noisy slap on the head, "and 'Dinner is over'", he took the last piece of bread from Sasha and threw it to the floor.
The young members of the Legion got pale and remained open-mouthed. Eren, on the other side, felt embarrassed.
"Pick up and clean all the dirty dishes. Clean the tables, broom and mop the floor. I'll come to supervise everything in two hours. Quick, move your asses," said Levi. Sasha, Connie and Eren got up swiftly to start with the assigned tasks, "Not you, Jaeger. Don't be an idiot." Levi gave him a cold glance, "Come with me."
Eren followed him and cleared his throat as they walked through the gloomy passage.
"Is it true that those guys are members of the Legion?" Eren asked and Levi continued walking in front of him, without responding.
He opened and closed doors that Eren had never gone through before and stopped in front of a big wooden and iron door. Levi turned around and looked at the boy with a tired expression from behind a gas lamp that he just lit up, taking it from a squared hole in the wall.
"Yeah, they're members of the Legion," he replied at last, "Some rowdy brats that aren't older than sixteen and that are about eleven years old mentally, from what I see. Get in and wait," he did a gesture with his head so Eren got inside the darkness of the unknown place he had in front of him.
Eren heard Levi lock some bolts, then he told Eren to follow him through some stairs. At the end of it, Levi opened a final door that took them to the homely inside of what seemed to be a standard house.
"Your room is on the second floor," Levi informed and Eren followed him, bewildered.
His new room was an actual room, not a dungeon like the one in which he had been living lately - a few meters underground. Here there was a window with dark green curtains, a bed that seemed comfortable, one little night table and a desk of cherry wood with a chair. There was also an old carved wooden wardrobe. The walls had a beige tone and the room had parquet floor. A small maroon rug decorated the floor near the bed.
"The bathroom is the first door at the right from the stairs. You have to always knock before getting in there," there was a slight tone of threat in his voice, "The kitchen is on the first floor, near the entrance to the basement. Now get a nap or do whatever you want, but don't nose into the rest of the rooms I didn't mention, is that clear?"
Eren nodded.
"Everything's clear, but what about my stuff?" he asked as he counted the doors that the second floor had. There were four, counting the bathroom.
"You can bring your stuff later, when your training is over."
Training. Shit. Eren realized in the tiredness he was feeling and in that he didn't know if he was going to be able to train in a dignified manner with Volker that night, but he preferred to not say anything and just limited himself to nod.
"Who else lives in this house?" he asked before Levi left.
Levi's eyes diverted towards the door next to the bathroom.
"Mikasa, me and sometimes, Kenny."
"Mikasa's room is also on this floor?" Eren asked with a bit of enthusiasm and Levi glared at him.
"Yes," he said, sharply, "We'll have a conversation later, Jaeger."
"Huh?" Eren blinked, "A conversation about what?"
Eren collapsed. The sweat went down through his forehead and irritated his eyes. The sweat from his torso wet his shirt and moist his short pants. He tried to give himself a good grip with his hands and knees so he could stand up, but a stomp on his back made him return to the ground and cut his breathe out.
"Get up," Levi ordered, without taking his foot from him.
The guy muttered a curse as he rested on his elbows, tightened his aching abs and tried to pull himself up.
Levi clicked his tongue and removed his foot. "You're going to do five hundred more crunches, you'll take a bath because you stink in every sense and then you'll go to sleep. That's all for today."
Levi's steps went away and Eren turned on his back. He extended his arms and breathed, again and again. His whole body ached. He felt as though he was dying, but at the same time he felt more alive than ever. After a long while stretched on the ground, he sat up and pulled his wet shirt off.
He rested his head on the wall as he regulated his breath, let out a laugh and rubbed his eyes - they were stinging.
Where was Volker and what kind of conversations were these?
He counted five hundred crunches, barely, near collapse. Worn out and confused, he got up as well as he could. He walked as if he was drunk, and headed up until he got to the bathroom, crashed into the wall and turned the handle of the door.
"But what-? Eren?"
Eren came completely to his senses in a second and his eyes widened. He couldn't believe what he was witnessing.
"For fuck's sake, Jaeger. I'm in the middle of a shit, get the fuck out and learn to knock the damn door!"
It was Kenny.
A/N: a minute of silence for those who thought he was going to find a sensual Mikasa coming out of the shower or something typical lmao
I've been travelling a lot for the past month and I've been mostly in tourist mode, so I haven't had time to write at all. Here we are, though. It's unbelievable that I was able to actually finish this chapter this week :o
I want to thank my dear Hoedi (erensjaegerbombs) for proofreading this chapter and helping me with some English wording issues, and for believing that Eren was going to find Mikasa at the end HAHAHAH!
Thank you very much for your support in the past chapter, guys. I'm so glad this fic surpassed a hundred favorites, has almost 150 alerts and also is at the verge of getting 130 reviews and more - I'm hoping so! Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed this chapter because I love writing Kenny and the Ackermans in general :x
Until the next update!
