027: Mikasa Ackerman and Hachiman II.

This happened when he was still in university –

But this happened after he gained powers –

Mikasa Ackerman was a fairly tall and well-toned woman of partial Asian heritage with pale skin, gray eyes and shaggy black hair. However over the past couple of weeks he had noticed the quick changes she made to her hairstyle. When they were first introduced, she had long, shoulder length hair, a week later she had cut it to chin-length and now her hair was even shorter and cut up to the back of her neck.

"Is there something you want to tell me, Mikasa?"

"Like what?"

Using her first name really felt odd. The two of them were introduced rather recently and his Japanese sensibilities prickled whenever he called her that. But she had told him to call her by her given name and he had to respect her wishes. Perhaps this is what they call a cultural clash. Or maybe he was making a big deal out of pretty much absolutely nothing. How typical of him.

"Like you have become so strong, your hair is starting to fall off." He pictured Saitama, the caped baldy in his yellow costume, red glove and boots, with his shinning dome of a head. Poor guy, nothing could hurt him except for the price of wigs and toupees to cover his patented baldness.

Unfortunately, thinking stupid thoughts, like what would she look like if she suddenly became bald was enough to get him distracted and Mikasa Ackerman took full advantage of the opening. Before long, her straight fist barreled into his guts and he doubled over in pain.

He wheezed, the wind knocked out of his sails and was down on all fours. Perhaps having a conversation in the middle of a sparring session in the boxing ring of the campus gymnasium was a bad idea. Even then he found himself talking to her as she looked on unimpressed with the progress he was making on the fighting front.

"Did I touch a nerve?"

"I don't know what you are talking about, Hikigaya."

He smiled. "Sure you do." Rather gingerly he got back on his feet. "I just made a bad joke about your hair."

"Your jokes need work." Mikasa observed. "As does your fighting stance. Correct your posture and put your guard up. Let's try this one more time."

Shizuka Hiratsuka-sensei and Tsunade Senju-sensei were of the opinion that he should really give some serious thought to learning some self defense skills. They gave him the choice to learn from either Erza Scarlet, the red headed S-Class mage or Mikasa Ackerman, the titan killing bad-ass.

At first he thought they were joking, but as it turned out they were really serious, something about him being able to defend himself in case he found himself in trouble because of the twelve magical talismans. Seriously, you would think life would become easier once you gain powers and other interesting abilities, but no, for him it gets even worse.

"You know if I used super-speed you wouldn't be able to touch me, right?"

"Uh-huh."

He moved closer, keeping his guard up, prepared to face a volley of jabs or a really mean hook. As far as he could tell, Mikasa wasn't going easy on him. Her blows had some serious power behind them and he was pretty sure he was gonna end up bruised and battered when their little sparing session was finally over. And so far he hadn't scored a single hit on her. Now that was embarrassing. He had to do something about it and he wasn't above playing dirty.

"So what's up with the ugly scarf?"

"It's a gift."

The dark maroon scarf she always wore, it was ugly, it was old, it was frayed but she was never without it. There had to be some story, some history behind it and maybe it was gonna be his way to lull her into a false sense of security and distract her enough to break her iron clad defense.

"Well whoever gave it to you, didn't really know much about women." Hachiman said, bouncing on the balls of his feet, getting within striking radius. He smirked and stepped in. "I would have definitely picked something floral."

"You are right." Mikasa said, eyes dead, face dark. "Eren should have definitely picked something better. But my parents had just been brutally murdered, so I wasn't really paying attention to what he was doing, wrapping this thing on me."

Dead fish eyes widened. "Oh shit! I'm sorr -"

Wham!

This time she hit him on the face with a right and he staggered back, feeling the full impact of her blow. He wasn't a trained boxer, he couldn't keep his eyes open and he definitely didn't know where he was headed as he moved back and back and -.

"No!"

He heard the rip of fabric before he realized what had happened. His head was spinning, his sight grew hazy and he was down, down on his ass, sitting on the edge of the boxing ring. Then he realized, his gloved hands were holding onto the remains of her scarf, with a large tear down the middle. Dead fish eyes widened and looked straight back up to meet her gray gaze.

"Mikasa, I'm -"

"It's nothing." Mikasa Ackerman lied, hands to her sides, making a fist. "Like you said, it was ugly and old." Then, completely astonishing him, unshed tears started to accumulate at the corner of her eyes. "Eren is stupid and I am stupid." She started to take off her gloves. "Sparring session's over, Hikigaya. You can leave. And do me a favour and throw that thing in the dumpster on your way out."

"Mikasa wait, I can fix this." Hachiman tried.

"How?" Mikasa said, voice low. "And if you say anything about how I should have learned knitting, I'm going to kick you between your legs."

Hachiman winced at the painful imagery produced by his rotten imagination, shook himself off and carefully placed the torn scarf on the mat. He then slipped out of the ring and retrieved one of the talismans from his newly purchased work out kit bag.

Mikasa was confused. "What's this?"

"This is the horse talisman." Hachiman explained. "It grants me healing and regenerative powers. But it can also be used to fix broken objects. Here, watch."

Mikasa thought he would say some magic word or yell out some special move. But he did none of those things. He just pointed the talisman at her scarf and both the object glowed for a second and before she knew it, her old scarf became brand new.

It didn't look old, it didn't look frayed, it didn't look ugly. But it was still her scarf, just better. For some reason, she thought he had exorcised the ghost of Eren from this piece of clothing. She didn't know how to feel about it. Eren, there was nothing to talk about him and she realized as she wrapped the scarf around her neck, checking it out, feeling it's texture on her neck, it felt like the strangle hold he had on her was no more.

"How is it?" Hachiman asked.

"It's now a piece of clothing, nothing more." Mikasa replied, cryptically, bringing the fabric to her nose and smelling it. Yes, it felt like it had been brought from a store, a store in Akihabara, not her dystopian world. And for some reason she was okay with it.

But Hachiman thought her cryptic reply meant he had somehow messed up. "Look, I'm sorry. But you don't have to worry. I can fix it. Yes!" He snapped his fingers and snatched the first idea that came to his mind. "Maybe I can learn knitting."

Mikasa smiled. "Oh really? From whom?"

"I don't know." Hachiman thought about it for a second. He twisted a tuft of white hair which stuck out from the front of his dark bangs and rolled it between his finger tips. There were a few things that came to mind. "Maybe Erza knows a thing or two about knitting. She does that whole costume change all the time in the name of magic."

Mikasa's smile left her face. Erza Scarlet. She didn't like her. Maybe it had something to do with how the other woman was good with swords and had beat her in a duel which had wrecked the sword fighting dojo number eight. She also didn't like how he was on good terms with him, even though he had picked her instead of Erza to be his fighting instructor, even though it was clear the red headed woman was superior to her in certain aspect, magic being a clear advantage.

But Mikasa didn't know how to feel about being jealous over this rotten dead fish eyed loner, who fixed her scarf and made it a part of her, instead of leaving it to be a part of someone else's dominion over her. But there was one thing she knew for certain. She liked kicking his ass on the boxing ring and she hated when he brought up other women in the conversation.

"Erza wouldn't know how to knit." Mikasa told him summarily. "She uses magic, remember?"

"Like me."

Mikasa scowled. Okay, now she hated when he made observations that made it seem like there were more similarities between him and Erza Scarlet. This was unacceptable and it needed to be stopped because he was wrong. However she didn't phrase it like that. "Erza wears armor. You are better off asking if she knows anything about being a blacksmith."

Hachiman Hikigaya, despite all his powers and keen intellect based on logic and reason couldn't pick out how the dark haired woman was obviously jealous. He instead, thought that she didn't like talking about Erza, because of their fight, still being bitter about her loss in the bout. He, however, was smart enough to not bring that up. From what he understood, Mikasa might be a sore loser.

He, however, made the mistake by listing another woman. "How about Tsunade?" He said with a smile and then made a lame joke. "You know, a woman her age probably knows a thing or two about knitting."

Mikasa Ackerman didn't laugh. He didn't expect her to laugh. But he thought he would at least get a smile out of her. However that was not the case. She had gone still, as still as a prey, when it notices the sharp outlines of a predator in the jungle.

"Ahem, ahem."

Oh no. Hachiman didn't have the courage to turn around, but he did, because he didn't want death to seize him from behind. And there she was, death in the face of a blonde, buxom beauty with honey coloured eyes, looking as young as ever. But he wasn't taken in by her beauty today. Instead, he was taken in by the glare, the anger visible in her stark features.

"I thought I should check up on you, Hikigaya." Tsunade Senju said. "Shizuka was worried you might say something stupid to Mikasa and end up getting killed in the ring." She barred her teeth and cracked her knuckles as she made her way into the ring. "I think she was right. Hahaha!"

The maniacal laugh did it.

"Excuse me."

"Huh? Mikasa? Where are you going?"

"To the ladies room." Mikasa Ackerman said without embarrassment.

She then jumped out of the ring and made it to the exit without looking back. Okay, she might be brave enough to want a rematch with Erza Scarlet and she might fight for Hikigaya's attention, if there were other, unsavoury women involved. But she wasn't foolish enough to get between Tsunade Senju and Hachiman Hikigaya, especially with the murderous aura she was currently oozing.

And as she left the gymnasium and heard his cries for help, screaming bloody murder in the distance, she consoled herself by saying, he was gonna be okay, because like he told her, he had the horse talisman with him. But she was pretty sure even magic had its limits and Tsunade, with the look she had given him, well, there would be a lot of healing and regeneration to do later on, that much, she was certain.

A/N: So, Hachiman has the twelve talisman. Also, the tuft of white hair, it's because he fell into a Lazarus Pit. That's the most sanest possible explanation I can give you for how he acts.

Now who should be in a future chapter?

Option 1: Sebastian Michaelis – Black Butler

Option 2: Monkey D. Luffy – One Piece.

Option 3: Shikamaru Nara – Naruto.

Option 4: Asuna Yuuki – Sword Art Online.

Option 5: Killua Zoldyck – Hunter x Hunter.

And as always, if you have any fun ideas for these characters or any other characters let me know in the reviews and I will try to write them.

Hope you enjoyed reading this chapter.

Leave lots and lots of reviews, follow and fave.

Won't betray your dreams.