Summary:
Levi is met with an unexpected visit from someone who presents to him a choice. The 104th Scouts share a meal amidst Levi and Mikasa's absence. Mikasa recalls what she's left behind as she pushes forward.
Levi, I don't want you.
I'm in love with Eren.
A woman's voice repeated itself and somehow encompassed Levi in the abyss of a dark scene. He opened his eyes, and far from him there was a single light, a small fire that sparked in the depths. As he approached, the light revealed a raven haired woman in a crimson scarf with no face.
Please, Levi. Just leave.
Each step taken closer to her, the tighter the crimson squeezed around her small neck. He was running now, desperate to save her. And as he reached out his hand to take hold of the scarf and free her, the garment dissolved through his very grasp. Tighter and tighter of a chokehold it squeezed til her revealed eyes rolled behind the back of her head. Her voice fought for air beneath a muffled scream before she vanished from his eyes.
Levi looked down at his hands, covered in crimson blood.
Levi shot up from the floor of his room gasping for air. His white shirt was drenched in sweat and his face was sweltering to the touch. Sleep was rare for him, and for a moment Levi realized maybe he avoids sleeping because of the familiar nightmares that haunt him — the unsightly visions of Farlan being devoured by a titan, the lone head of Isabel staring at him from the ground, Petra laying lifeless in the forest, and Erwin's last breath. It was all too familiar, but the familiarity never could take away the pain. Levi was simply good at ignoring his inner demons. He had to be.
But this was the first nightmare that didn't replay his past.
What was it again…?
The confused soldier held his head in his hands, still in a daze as he wiped sweat from his warm forehead. He propped up and sat against the wall, now focused on the sweat on the back of his hand; the dream of Mikasa's blood on his hands flashed again in his mind.
Mikasa…
He looked up at his room, dim and gray. It was hard to work out whether it was early morning or evening in the glum. All he could remember was walking back to the house late at night, sitting on the floor as he patiently waited for Mikasa to come back after… Ah, that's right… After she yelled at him to leave.
After she told him she didn't want him. Tch.
Levi pulled the drenched shirt off of his bare back and stood before a mirror, gazing at the scars on his body; each cut and scratch on his toned muscles held different stories, different memories, different victories, different pain. He sighed. The look in Mikasa's resentful eyes and the sting of her words might as well have left its own physical scar on him. He reached for his blue shirt, Mikasa's favorite, but paused. Something deep stabbed at the soldier's heart as he remembered the previous night. Wait.
"MIKASA."
Levi's eyes widened in the mirror as he threw the shirt over himself and darted out the room. The house was empty, and much too quiet. He turned left to Onyankapon's vacant room, and quickly read a handwritten note from the Marleyan man about his departure in the early morning. Then his head shot to the right, and he stood staring at the shut door of Mikasa's.
Anyone could hear a pin drop in the silence that followed. He couldn't shake the terrible gut feeling that grew with every step closer. "Mikasa?" He knocked softly on the paper of the shoji that separated him from her space.
Nothing. He knew.
"Mikasa, please answer."
He slid open the door and the desolate room proved his suspicions to be true. All that was left was a small bag; one he remembered she'd brought onto the ship.
A knock sounded on the wooden door of the home.
Levi bolted to the entrance and unlatched the door, relief began to fill him. "Mikas—"
"Good afternoon, Captain Levi." Lady Kiyomi stood at his doorstep; Hatori and the three usual soldiers accompanied behind her. The shared serious look on each of their faces told Levi all he needed to know. He continued trying to keep his composure. There was only time to be Captain Levi of the Paradis Island Scouts.
"Lady Kiyomi, good afternoon." He tried surveying behind Hatori and the soldiers, hoping to find who he was looking for. "Mikasa — my soldier... Is she with you?"
Kiyomi glanced back behind her men, trying to follow Levi's frantic eyes before she turned to him again. Her expression sank, and she reached a hand onto Levi's shoulder. "Mikasa-san has left."
The shock of Levi's eyes met with Kiyomi's as she continued to stare at him with pity. He didn't even take a moment to process before he faltered from the old woman, racing to grab his jacket and belongings. He needed to leave now. He needed to find Mikasa. There was no way in hell she'd actually leave without him. Was she alone? Is she really fucking gone?
"Captain." Hatori spoke up.
"Lady Kiyomi, I need to leave now. I need to find my soldier. Please excuse me." He brushed past her at the entrance, his belongings in hand.
"Captain." Hatori repeated himself and stepped forward. The soldiers followed and formed a line, blocking Levi's path leading outside of the home. "Captain Levi of Paradis, we have been ordered by Mikasa of the Shogunate to send you back to Paradis. She did not permit you to follow. These are her direct orders."
"Hatori, what the hell are you talking about? Lady Kiyomi?" Levi's voice raised, and Hatori and the men stiffened. "As her captain, I need you to tell me exactly what is happening here." Levi's mind was racing; each second passing was another moment for Mikasa to drift further and further away. His jaw tensed and he looked off to the distance, fists clenched in stress.
Kiyomi stepped forward to him, and the soldiers pushed forward, cautious of their leader approaching the agitated captain. Tensions settled as she placed a gentle hand on Levi's cheek, patting it softly. "Child… Let's sit." The Lady turned back to her men. "Hatori, soldiers, you are dismissed. Captain Levi and I will have tea."
The men looked at each other, baffled. "Lady Kiyomi, we were instructed by the Shogunate to send him back to Paradis."
"Yes, yes, you are correct. But I am ordering you to do that later." She smiled. "I hear Captain Levi is a fan of quality teas. It would be a shame if we sent him away before he was able to enjoy some of the ginseng we left for him here, no?"
They hesitantly bowed to her before turning to head back uphill as she continued shooing them away. The smile never left Kiyomi's face as she walked past Levi and entered the home, leaving her geta sandals behind at the entrance. Levi stared forward before turning to follow her.
Kiyomi had already made her way to the aged bronze kettle, placing it on the stove and striking two stones of flint to light the fire beneath — somehow, a high-class leader like Kiyomi seemed much more familiar with the humble setting than expected, Levi thought.
He continued standing, still lost in his chaotic thoughts while observing the old woman making tea. "Lady Kiyomi, please. Please just tell me what is happening. Where is she? When did Mikasa leave?" He made the utmost effort to conceal the desperation in his voice.
She continued dropping a handful of ginseng roots into the water, bringing it to a boil before finally speaking again. "This home…" She stirred the inside of the kettle with a bamboo spoon. "This is where my first love, Izumi, grew up." The aged woman sat at the nearby kotatsu, encouraging a hesitant Levi to join her. Kiyomi continued looking around at the home fondly; Levi could see precious memories replaying in her mind, much like himself when he sits in the empty meeting rooms of old Squad Levi. He finally took a seat on a cushion in front of her.
"Izumi was the love of my life and I was his, though we didn't marry. Our love was unbreakable." Her eyes closed and her mouth pressed in a line. "But I rejected him. I chose my husband for his power and status, and Izumi perished in the war shortly after. I wish every day that Izumi was still here." Kiyomi blinked for a moment, then turned to Levi.
"...Lady Kiyomi, why are you telling me this?"
"Levi." It was the first time she'd addressed him without his ranking. "Mikasa-san is the hope of our Hizuru. If I could choose, she would stay here and learn to rule this land that is rightfully hers." She stood again and walked towards the whistling kettle. "But I saw how that girl looked at you, and how you held onto each other that night." Levi's lips parted and a pink tinge arose on his face. "And I understood immediately why she constantly chooses Paradis—you—as her home." Levi turned his face to the window, avoiding eye contact but still trying to understand.
"But that girl..." Kiyomi chuckled, "My, that girl is stubborn. That much is easy to read. So stubborn as to leave her commanding captain behind, and take a plane along with one of my pilots to Marley in the middle of the night." The earthy smell of ginseng tea filled the air as she poured into two small clay cups, placing it on the surface of the kotatsu. "She is still the rightful future leader, and as she gave her demands to us in the middle of the night, we couldn't dare go against her. A feisty one, she is." She laughed into her hands.
The ginseng tea tasted bitter in Levi's mouth. On a normal day, maybe he'd enjoy it more. But perhaps at that moment, while envisioning Mikasa leaving alone on a damn plane, even his favorite of teas would taste just as bitter on his tongue. He continued to stay silent.
"Levi. I was once like Mikasa-san. I chose my duties over love. I chose power over Izumi. Not a day passes that I don't regret that." Kiyomi wiped a droplet of tea from the edge of her cup.
"Mikasa-san didn't want to leave you. I can tell she is the kind of person who refuses to admit love, even for years on end. She will always aim to choose her duties, and she will make terrible decisions for her own heart in the name of protecting who she loves." She placed a motherly hand on Levi's. "And I can tell you are the same, Captain."
"She's in love with Eren Jaeger."
"And if she was... Tell me, Captain Levi, does that change your love?"
He was silent.
She cackled, much louder than he would have expected. "Captain. I am allowing you the choice to find Mikasa-san and protect her, not because she is the future of Hizuru," she patted his hand once more as he looked at her with shock at not being sent to Paradis, "But because I want the girl to choose love for once. I want her to hold onto it." She stood and placed her empty cup in the stone sink. "And I want you to choose the same."
Kiyomi turned to reach out a hand to Levi. "Will you listen to her orders and go back to Paradis? Or will you accept my invitation to follow the woman you love?" Levi took her wrinkled hand and stood before her, a look of deliberation on his face. Kiyomi smiled and walked towards the circular window, her back to Levi now. The clouds parted and the sun finally flooded in. "My... What is a life of war and power without a person to love?"
Levi remembered Farlan's words. He remembered that damn star in the sky.
...
It'd been a quiet hour since Lady Kiyomi left. Levi continued sipping the bitter ginseng tea. Ginseng is good, Kiyomi said as she stepped out of the house, it helps brighten our eyes and open our hearts. The rustling of the wind continued to find its way into the house; Mikasa's shoji door rattled back and forth as Levi sat in her room.
His hands began to sweat again, the veins of his neck pulsed as he remembered his dream. The closer he got to Mikasa, the more in danger she was; when he finally reached her, her life vanished. If he followed the woman he loved, she would vanish from him. Just like everyone else. And hell, she didn't fucking love him anyway.
"Tell me Captain Levi, does that change your love?"
Dammit. Choose, Levi.
"Will you listen to her orders and go back to Paradis? Or will you accept my invitation to follow the woman you love?"
Choose.
A rustic leather bag was left on Mikasa's futon. From the looks of the tidy tatami room, it occurred to him that she must have intended to leave it behind. Tch. Does that brat expect me to haul her stuff back home? He took a seat on the bedding that she hadn't even had a chance to rest on, still staring at the bag before something inside caught his eye. Crimson color peeked at him through the opening.
A sigh. He pulled the red scarf from the bag and held it in his rough hands for the first time. Disgusting, he thought. Levi scoffed. The fact that a woman like Mikasa was so hung up on a shitty garment, and how she managed to wear that like a chain every day was beyond him. Fucking complicated. He slumped over his knees now, scarf in hand, as he shook his head in realization.
Mikasa had finally chosen to leave her red scarf behind.
The mess hall was busy with ruckus, and Scouts both new and old were crowded inside to join for dinner. Sasha took an excessive bite from a large chicken leg, chewing with her mouth open obnoxiously. "Hey... Why do ya think Captain and Mikasa went to Marley alone?"
"They're the strongest, Sasha... Let's be real, the rest of us are weak. And I don't know, Commander Hange and Commander Pixis both mentioned there might be something going on between Mikasa and Cap—"
"CONNIE, s-shut up! It's nothing special!" Jean boomed, his voice projected through the hall. His ears were flaming and his arms crossed, and if Eren was there, he'd have poked fun at the hot-tempered guy for bratty attitude.
"EH?!" The brown haired glutton swallowed her chicken in a gulp, waving the partially-eaten poultry in the air now. "Connie, you sayin' they're lovers?! She never told me! Woulda never guessed..."
"Would it really be a surprise, though?" Armin stepped forward and joined them at their long table. He was a Commander now, but that never took him away from his precious time with the close circle. He had a gentle smile on his pale face, and his blue eyes looked around the table at his friends once placing his tray of food down. "The Captain is closer to Mikasa than any of us these days... even me. Mikasa has been so much better, even though..." his voice quieted as he picked up his silverware, "Even though Eren isn't around anymore."
The table went silent, even Jean, and they continued looking at Armin who still hadn't taken a bite of food yet as he continued. "Captain Levi is good for Mikasa to be around. And I know they'll be able to find Eren."
"Yeah, I reckon Captain has always had a soft spot for 'Kasa... Did ya see how they were in Marley?!"
Jean sighed and slammed a mug on the table. He stood from the table and adjusted his collar, standing taller and deepening his voice through his teeth. "Captain Levi is a good man." He turned forward, his back facing his friends now, then mumbled under his breath. "...Better than that shit-faced suicidal maniac, at least."
"Pfft... Better than you!" A small loaf of bread hit Jean's back. His eyes shot back to see a snickering Connie who mistakenly thought he'd just thrown from his own tray. Sasha jumped over Connie with insidious eyes and bit his arm that threw her precious food.
The stir of the engines thundered in the dead of the night, and the blades of the propellers began to spin. Mikasa had only seen diagrams of the small airplanes of Hizuru from Kiyomi's reports, but she didn't realize just how mighty they really were in person.
The metal sheets of the plane shined even in the dark; a fine display of technology and materials that were still out of reach for Paradis. She gazed at the metal propellers and felt the strength of the pushed air. Something glowed in the back, and she'd guessed it was the crystals of Paradis that Kiyomi had been using for their technological advancement — she remembered the reports of the crystals allowing the planes to go further distances. The Hizuran pilot started to reach out a hand to welcome the lone girl aboard.
Hatori stepped forward to stop her for a moment. After watching the future of Hizuru leaving once again just as soon as she had arrived, the old man was filled with worry knowing Mikasa hadn't eaten or slept, and... There was something else off about her that he couldn't pinpoint, though he knew it wasn't his business to pry. "Mikasa-san… Are you sure about this?" He was yelling now over the sound of the plane revving up.
"I'm sure."
"But Captain Le—"
"The captain will be sent back to Paradis, as I've instructed you and your men. Thank you for cooperating."
Hatori put a hand on the shoulder of the girl who still refused to turn to look at him. "Did he hurt you?"
Mikasa shot back to look at him now, eyes finally lit with any kind of emotion at all. "No! No, he didn't. He didn't do anything wrong. I just…" Her arms fell to her sides, a sign of defeat. There was nothing more to explain — nothing more she could explain. She looked away again.
"Love is a scary thing, isn't it, Mikasa-san?"
"Sir...?"
"Off you go, now! Wishing you safe travels in your search for Eren Jaeger!" Hatori turned and walked away as Mikasa stood watching, his words still lingering.
She glanced back towards the dirt path that led back to the castle village, closer to where Levi and Onyankapon were asleep, and she waited for one second.
Then another.
Mikasa didn't know what she was waiting for, but perhaps if she stayed a moment longer, maybe — just maybe — someone would be calling for her name. She blinked, then exhaled a shaky breath before finally turning to take the hand of the pilot.
The doors were shut, and the propellers began to push the plane forward. And as they took off higher into the cold sky, her sullen eyes continued to watch, continued to wait. The vision of Levi standing and yelling for her to come back to him was only a tired hallucination, a figment of her imagination.
Perhaps it was her wishful thinking.
But it was better this way. This was going to be so much better. Mikasa didn't need Levi, and if there was anyone who could bring back Eren, it had to be her. The closer she could get back to Eren, then she could go back to who she really was. Nothing else needed to matter to her except Eren.
...Right?
But she remembered leaving that tattered scarf in her room expecting to never see it again. The fact that it didn't even hurt to leave it was cumbersome to her.
The plane soared high into the night sky. Mikasa was convinced that the darkness of the lands and sea below held its own beauty, but it remained far too dark to even see. Nighttime and darkness had always been a subtle fear of Mikasa's. In battle, darkness created weakness; blind spots lead to absolute detriment. But outside of the battlefield, it was all the same — the idea of not being able to see what's coming always terrified her, and the unknowns always shook her to her core.
But these days, what Mikasa feared even more than the darkness or the unknowns, was being able to completely foretell all that could have happened had she stayed close to Levi — had she taken that step closer to Levi in the doorway, had she spent even a day longer with him. She needed to break his heart. If she didn't, he would have kept his damn promise to stay with her.
If she didn't, maybe she'd have fallen in love with Levi.
But now, she'll be okay.
She dodged it.
There was no need to worry about him anymore. Levi would be safe now. And he sure as hell didn't have to keep wasting that gentle love in his eyes on someone like her.
He doesn't need me.
As Mikasa flew miles and miles further from her abandoned captain, the unknowns continued to grow. The idea of getting closer to finding Eren still gave the girl no peace. She slipped into a nightmare-filled slumber in the skies.
AUTHOR NOTES:
First of all, thank you for waiting! I had a whole week's vacation at the coast and most of it was spent daydreaming about my story and the way Chapter 3 ended! But here we are with another one :')
Granny Kiyomi! I needed someone to talk some sense into Levi, and it made sense for Kiyomi to step in. Just like everyone else around the two, she has seen enough between Levi and Mikasa at this point to know that they want to be with each other.
A summary of the backstory I've given Kiyomi: she had a life love named Izumi, but because she chose her status and duty, she married someone of a higher class to aid her political career. She is projecting her regrets for not choosing love onto Levi and Mikasa, who remind her of herself and Izumi. (Fun fact: I chose "Izumi" as an homage to the Uchihas, which I reference whenever I clarify to others that Mikasa and Levi are not closely related within their Clan because... hello Itachi x Izumi)
Levi's dreams reveal his inner demons. He'll soon realize his fears are very similar to that of Mikasa's.
The Scouts! Everyone but Jean ships Levi and Mikasa. They all see it and support it, even if they don't directly say it. Sorry again, Jean 😭
And YAY! Mikasa left her scarf! LOL my canon dreams! Levi observes Mikasa's interactions with her scarf to understand her deep thoughts better...
And Mikasa. She's gonna be here for awhile; fighting against her feelings and trying to convince herself that she's making the best choice. Just like Kiyomi predicted lol.
I hope y'all enjoyed this one. 3 Still lots of development, but I already can't wait to write up what's next!