Part 51
All Out in the Open
(Reader discretion is advised for this 'Part'. Issues concerning Fury's past is not meant to cause any emotional harm to anyone reading it. Please read on at your own will.)
"Sannes!" Ralph called out to his fellow comrade as both Hange and Fury had brought him down to join the others in the same cell as each other. "Are you… alright?" Ralph then asked as he stood up from his bed, Sannes continuing to walk towards the man with clenched fists. "You didn't tell them anything, right? Our loyalty to the King is-"
But with Sannes's own hands, he clenched the shirt collar of Ralph's within his grasp, his face grim and his teeth gritted in anger, or what remained of his them due to Levi knocking a few out. "I can't stand hearing your voice anymore!" Sannes bellowed as his hands then moved to wrap themselves around Ralph's throat. "You betrayed me! To think… To think I trusted you!"
"You prick…" Came the mutter of Fury as both she and Hange stood in watch at the men falling apart. "He never told us a thing… I never even questioned him."
Hange sighed, pushing her glasses up as she then held the script up in front of her, gaining the attention of Sannes. "We threatened Ralph at knifepoint and forced him to read from this script that I wrote."
With conflicted eyes, Sannes let Ralph go, him dropping to the floor and gasping for air as the reality then hit Sannes. "Then it was I… who betrayed the King."
"… So you're… the demon?" Ralph then asked Fury directly, though his words were spoken through coughs from him catching his breath.
"I'm pretty sure people think the same thing about all of you." Fury responded and yet her eyes were narrowed at being viewed as an enemy.
"And that's why I did what I did!" Hange exclaimed, bringing her face close to the cells bars as she held onto them to make her next words more clear. "Look at how pathetic you are! Grown-ass men wailing and crying! Yet it serves you right! Let's see how you like spending the rest of your lives shitting in a tiny cell together!"
"Next in line…" Sannes muttered just as both Fury and Hange were about to climb up the stairs that would lead back up to Levi and the rest. "This role of ours… There's an order to it. When one's role is done, another steps in to start the act again. And thus, the world can never be rid of it." Sannes then raised his head, water streamed from his eyes as he looked directly at Fury herself. "Good luck… Aya."
Fury widened her eyes at hearing her real name. It felt so long since she had been called such and yet it made her realise that they must've known who she was all this time. And if Kenny was with the Military Police, there was even more reason as to why he murdered her parents with no remorse.
"… Who's Aya?" Hange asked, her eyes staring down at Sannes and yet they moved up to Fury as the tormented female continued to climb the stairs, leaving Hange to put the pieces together.
Closing the door that lead down to where Hange remained, Fury then leaned against it as she emitted a heavy sigh. Was she ever to escape all these conflicts and guilt? As soon as she feels she makes progress in living her life, shit hits the fan and she's reminded of everything wrong that's always surrounded her.
Out of frustration, the small woman grabbed a nearby chair and threw it with force against the wall, shattering the wooden furniture in the process just as Levi made his appearance as he was wondering why both Hange and Fury were taking so long. Upon seeing him, Fury looked away, placing some strands of her light blonde hair behind her ear. "Eren made me do it…" She attempted to joke though Levi did not see the amusement of it, as he remained stood there with such a blank expression. Nothing new there when it came to Levi.
"Time to talk." He bluntly told her. Seemed like the right moment to do so. "I'd say take a seat but you broke it."
"… I'm not so sure that it's going to be me that needs the seat here…" Fury muttered in a response, still barely able to even look at someone she has been close with for years. If any trust had been shattered, it was her own fault and Fury knew this.
"Tch… I was going to take the only seat left anyway." Levi snarled, pulling said chair out from under the table and he sat in it, placing one of his legs over the other as he allowed one of his arms to hang freely behind the back of the chair. "So, you know Kenny. I've had time to think this through, so I've only been able to imagine your surprise when I now tell you that I kinda always had an inkling that you knew of him at least."
That was an initial shock to Fury, yes, though she did damn well to hide it by keeping her gaze hidden. Then again, Levi wasn't stupid. The times he mentioned Kenny himself, he must've picked up on Fury's shift in attitudes. "… I can explain it all…"
"That's why you came to find me, wasn't it?" Levi questioned. "All those years ago back down in the Underground. You thought I'd know where Kenny was so you could, what, go after him?" He frowned. "Speak up, Fury, I can't hear you."
"I don't know!" Fury exclaimed, holding her head as she shook it. "I just… I don't know anymore!"
Levi's expression softened slightly. He was now able to see the full extent of her struggle right in front of him and deep down he didn't want her to feel any worse than she clearly already did. "Now's the time for you to get it out in the open. No matter how fucked up this all is to me."
Fury leaned against the wall, her head still lowered and her hair dangled in front of her as she lifted a shaky hand to cover her eyes. Was she crying? "I don't know how long it was after he left you and found me living in a shit tip." She began in a stuttered speech. "I'm not looking for sympathy, I never have. But the men I was involved with forced me to do some… shitty things to other people. But I had to do what I had to do in order to survive.
But in the end, I had to be the one to refuse. In return, I was beaten until I pretty much blacked out. But the last thing I remember before I did was the men in the room having their necks shredded open by one swift cut. Exactly how you did it when you came that day, with Farlan.
But it was Kenny's doing, killing those men."
"Never pictured him as the hero type…" Levi muttered as he lowered his own head. Why was he finding it such a struggle to hear Fury even went through all of this? She never did go into too much detail about her life before meeting Levi himself.
"Believe me, heroic as this act from him was, a hero he is not." Fury made clear. "But I was young, gullible, and insecure. What he offered me; I thought it would be my way out."
"Let me guess…" Levi interrupted. "He taught you how to fight." He then sighed. A part of him somewhat knew that too. The way Fury fought was all so similar to Kenny himself.
"Sounds like fun and games, right?" She made an emotional laugh. A fake one in its own right. "It wasn't. And thank fuck he only kept me pinned down for a year."
"What else did he do?" Levi demanded to know. He of all people knew what it was like living alongside Kenny but he needed to know what that man did to his oldest friend. A woman, if that as it was Kenny himself who told Levi to never raise a hand to a woman. He could feel a type of anger brewing in the pit of his stomach at thought of Kenny being a hypocrite as well as a murderer.
Fury turned her body around and began to lift the back of her dark shirt up, revealing her bare back that harboured the marks of scars from Kenny. Whip lines from a belt he would use. "If I didn't push myself enough, he left his mark. If I gave him attitude, he left his mark. If I refused anything else from within his hat of games, he left his mark… So can you now understand why I hate that man? Yeah,he taught me how to fight, but changing who I was became to price for it."
What could Levi say? He couldn't say anything. All he could do was look away and clench his fists. He himself received the odd beating here and there from Kenny when he too wasn't pushing himself hard enough, but never a beating enough that would leave scars on his body.
"He told me about you…" Fury continued, pulling her shirt back down and pushing it into her trousers. "That's how I knew to look for you. Kenny left me with questions. He just up and left one day, said he was done with the Underground. I never got to ask him why he took so much from me. So I figured if anyone would know where he was, it was you…"
"What do you mean by what he took from you?" Levi then questioned, giving Fury enough reason to finally look at him.
"He killed my mother… Someone ordered him to do so." She revealed. "And finding out Kenny is with the MP's and how they want me dead at the order of the worms whispering into the fake King's ears, I still just want to know why…"
"Makes sense…" Levi confirmed. "Those thugs me and Farlan dealt with when we first contacted you in the Underground…"
"The one's that never had a knife to their throats by Kenny…" Fury revealed after she nodded her head.
"… You had so much time to tell me all of this. Why didn't you?" Levi then asked. It was a fair question.
"You don't understand…" Once again, Fury removed her gaze from Levi and had her eyes staring at her own feet. "The conflict I had when Kenny was around. All he did to me and yet I thought he was my friend. I was thankful to him for teaching me how to survive and yet I hated him too. And after finding out he killed my mother, someone he never even knew, my hate has only grown. The kindness you and Farlan gave to me, how could I risk losing such a rarity? If I blurted out then and there that, 'Hey Levi, do you know where Kenny is?', I know you enough now to know you'd have had me at knifepoint. Yet as time went on and I gained a real friendship from you and Farlan, if I then asked you the same question, I knew I feared I'd lose the only real friends I ever had. Then Isabel became part of what I considered our family. Don't you see? The more time went on, the harder it came for me to speak to you about Kenny. I feared you thinking I betrayed you, I feared being back out on the streets again. Believe it or not, but behind this defensive exterior, I'm still the same sacred little girl I was the day I met Kenny…"
A moment of silence remained between the two of them. "I don't feel betrayed…" Levi eventually spoke, causing Fury to lift her head and look at him again with teary eyes. Seeing Fury in such an emotional state was even a first for Levi himself. "Disappointed, yes. But at the same time, I can understand why you couldn't bring yourself to say all of this back then. The more time goes on, the harder it is to admit the truth, I suppose. I'm guessing you weren't always 'Fury' then?"
Fury shook her head. "Aya…" She then revealed to Levi. "That's my real name. Kenny dubbed me his 'little fury' and so, Fury is who I became. I thought that by changing my name I could change who I was. I threw aside Aya, who was fearful and scared and I became Fury. But in doing so, Kenny's shadow has always followed me in the process. Yet adopting the name Fury, I hid away parts of myself that made me feel… human. I no longer cared for others, I held a shitty opinion against Humanity and what we deserve. I only ever saw the bad in everyone. But you, Farlan and Isabel… I didn't have to be this stoic bitch around you all."
Levi then stood up from his chair. His expression was that of conflict itself as he then rubbed his face. "Despite all you've kept from me…" He muttered. "I can't help but feel I've just gotten to know the real you. But what do I call you? Fury or Aya?"
"Fury." Was her simple response. "No matter what, I'll always be Fury…"
"I figured." Levi huffed. "Better get back up to the brats. I'll get Hange. It's about time they all get filled in."
