Chapter 6. Black Dog

A/N: This one came along quicker than anticipated, so yay! The past few chapters have been pretty action-heavy, so this one takes a break from that—more dialogue, and maybe some answers to a few questions…

The knife was buried to the hilt, the man's blood coating his hands, gushing hot and sticky over his knuckles and down his forearms in dark rivulets.

His pulse raced in his neck. His veins no longer seeming to carry lifeblood but rather some foreign ichor of a burning kind—a molten substance that was thinner than air and quicker than light.

And he had never felt more powerful.

The man's feet dangled above the ground uselessly, his body curved to an awkward side as Levi lifted his corpse into the air like he weighed nothing. He was nothing.

The light began to spill from his pores, burning through his flesh like magma, as if the vessel that was his body was simply too small to contain its power.

And just like that, it was gone.

Levi slid to the ground and slammed onto his knees, his legs no longer strong enough to keep him standing.

He had nearly burst with that power, but with its absence he felt like a brittle shell waiting to crumble inward with the slightest breeze. It was all he could do to force air back into his lungs, the very action of breathing difficult.

He became aware of someone watching him and dragged his weary gaze upward. Had he the energy, he would have clambered back in shock.

Because staring back at Levi, appearing equally as shocked, was himself.

"You want me to wake him up?"

It was Rikard's voice, he could tell. He kept still and silent, eyes closed, trying to get a sense of where he was. He had been dreaming. His head fucking hurt.

"No, give it a second. Where's the girl?" A woman's voice. He didn't recognize it.

"Cell down the hall."

"She eat yet?"

"No, too stubborn. Tried to bite me."

The woman laughed an airy chuckle. "Spirited little thing, isn't she?"

"She tried to bite me. Like a dog."

"Oh, c'mon, Rikard. Grow up."

Levi cracked his eyes open the slightest amount, lashes barely parting, but enough to let in the faint glow of firelight. He couldn't tell where they were in relation to him—maybe behind, to the side. He was so damn disoriented.

His head really hurt.

"Sure you don't want me to wake him? He's been sleepin' like a princess for over an hour now."

"In a second. I want to see who I'm dealing with."

Well, wasn't this just his shitty luck. Levi ignored his throbbing temples and strained to hear anything aside from the two speakers that could tell him where the hell he was. The space sounded dead, hardly any echo to their voices, so probably a small room.

"You need a bath," the woman muttered.

"I'll bathe after. Not leaving you alone here."

"He's chained up."

Huh, he was. At her words, he became suddenly aware of the metal encircling his left wrist. Shitty, shitty luck.

"Still not leaving. Deal with the smell."

His senses were returning slowly, the weight of the cuff becoming more solid and the light more vivid. They were behind him. He had his back to them, lying on his side. He wondered if the gaps between their conversation were really that long or if he was just fading in and out of consciousness.

He attempted to carefully adjust his wrist against the unforgiving bite of the cuff's cold constraint, but the movement sent a sharp, shooting pain up his arm. The groan escaped his throat before he could stifle it.

"Look, see? He's waking up."

Dammit, Levi. Too late now.

There was shuffling behind him, someone rose from a chair, and he heard the dull tread of their boots. It was the woman—she spoke again. "Try not to move too quickly. You got caught up in the blast and it knocked you around pretty good."

Oh, yes, he hurt. Moving his arm seemed to awaken all the other pains in his body. His memory didn't revive as quickly, unfortunately.

"You were lucky, though," she continued, voice closer now. "Can't say the same for your friends."

Images began to return to him. His friends. The battle. The girl with her weeping, amber eyes; Rikard dragging her deeper into the shadowed recess of the cave. Efran, his wild face, fighting men left and right like some angered bear.

Mikasa and the knife. Mikasa.

The memory of her face hit him like a slap, and his eyes shot open. He remembered everything then—the foreign, almost animalistic rage on her face as she drove her blade into the man's ribs and lifted him into the air like he weighed...nothing.

He remembered being particularly absorbed by the sight of the man's blood trickling over the hilt of the blade and running over Mikasa's forearms. He knew it had been sticky and warm over her hands.

Because he had felt it.

And then, whatever transfixion had held him motionless and captive to the scene had broken like glass somewhere in the back of his head. Mikasa had crumpled to the floor, her exhaustion his own.

Not a dream.

Levi's eyes opened wide, and he shot up to seated, ignoring his body's screaming protest. His vision swam at the sudden movement, two figures blurring and doubling before him under the flickering lantern hanging on the wall.

He would have stood completely, had he not tangled his feet in the chain. He collapsed back down onto his ass with a thud, the fall jarring his vision back into focus. He met the surprised expressions of Rikard and the woman. The latter was the first to recover.

"You don't like to listen, do you?" Her face was downturned, eyes up and regarding him steadily, the shadow of the lantern giving her smile a strangely wicked look. "I'm sure that hurt."

It did. And he was pretty sure his left shoulder was dislocated.

"Levi, is it?"

He only glared.

"She asked you a question," Rikard said, rising from his own chair to stand beside the woman. She waved a hand in dismissal.

"Rhetorical. I know who he is. Only humanity's strongest, this one." He couldn't tell if her tone was mocking or not.

There wasn't anything particularly striking about her features—she was rather plain, actually—though she did look rather young. Early twenties, maybe. Her face was indiscernible behind that balmy smile.

It struck him then just how similar she looked to the man sitting beside her. Red hair, which looked aflame under the lantern light, similar features, and he bet if she were closer he would see a pair of green eyes. Rikard probably had a decade on Levi, but that didn't rule out the possibility of the young woman being his sister.

Her clothes were as nondescript as her face, but she wore a silken garment over her shoulders that resembled a very long scarf or stole. It was a deep red just like the tunics of the men in the clearing.

"You supposed to be a fucking priest or something?" His voice was dry and hoarse from disuse.

The woman blinked at him before throwing her head back and bellowing with laughter. She fingered the stole and grinned. "I take it you aren't a man of faith, Levi. Am I right?"

Rikard scoffed and sat back down in his chair, muttering something that Levi missed.

"You kidnap children. Am I right?" he bit, arm tensing against the chain.

"Ah, Dennard." Her grin faded back to her placid smile. "The girl is safe. Stubborn, won't eat, but safe."

"You killed her father."

"A mistake." The smile faltered. "I miscalculated the mental state of two Redeemers in—"

Levi had his free hand around the woman's throat before she could finish speaking. She held up a hand before Rikard could draw the knife at his belt, placating, her eyes calm and steady as she kept Levi's gaze.

"What do you want?" Levi's voice was a deep growl, teeth bared and inches from the woman's unflinching face. His vision felt blurry on account of his head, but he refused to loosen his grip.

"Those who have been wronged shall be avenged, and those who are forsaken shall be redeemed," she intoned, her voice taking on the careful timbre of someone reciting a hymn or prayer. Levi snarled and tightened his grip on her neck.

"Spare me your pithy catchphrase, priestess."

She grinned. "It is the motto of The Redeemers, Levi. In time I hope it will come to mean something to you."

Levi shoved the woman away with a scoff, yanking roughly against the chain that linked his arm to the wall. His eyes were slowly adjusting to the gloom, and he could make out the edges of a door on the far wall. Other than that and the two chairs, the small room was barren. No windows, no furniture. Just a chain drilled into the floor.

The woman's gaze followed his own. "Not the most comfortable setup, I know." She rolled her neck and shoulders gingerly. "But it's not nice to strangle people, Levi."

"You know my name, but I never got yours." He gathered the chain in both hands, holding it across his lap as he leaned casually against the wall. In actuality, it was all he could do not to collapse back onto the ground in exhaustion—Every muscle in his body ached, and his shoulder was definitely dislocated. He kept his face impassive.

"I have many names, especially amongst my people," she replied, sitting once more in her chair. "Though, I don't expect you to call me Red Mother," she added with a smirk.

"How about Red Bitch?"

Rikard did draw his knife then, rising from his chair again. "Careful, bastard."

"Rik, sit down." The red woman didn't look away from Levi as she spoke. Rikard hesitated for a moment, jaw tensing in aggravation, before sitting down in his own chair.

"You chain the girl up, too?" Levi monotoned.

"We only chain dogs." Rikard sheathed his blade with a rough hand.

"To answer your earlier question," the red woman began, ignoring Rikard, "our mission is to take back the lives that have been stolen. To redeem those wronged by the tyrants in power."

Levi was chained to the floor of a small room talking to a zealous cult-freak of a woman. Shitty ass luck. His eyes ached. He really wanted to sit down.

"So you're the good guys?" he mocked. She ignored him.

"The rich fools of Mitras stuff their faces to excess, while children starve in the darkness right below their feet." A glimmer of indignation shone in her eyes, the serene mask finally showing a crack. "The people above don't know suffering, they don't know true pain, or loss, or what it's like to go hungry."

She leaned forward then, elbows on knees–the position almost masculine and at variance with her regal countenance. The indignation had given way to something more raw, and she wore it openly.

"But you do, Levi. Because you might have served these past years as the government's lackey, but deep down you're still one of us." She paused here, voice dropping to a murmur. "Yes, I know your name. In fact, I'd wager I know more about it than even you do."

That got his attention. His mask must have slipped because she began to nod slowly, her smile growing.

"The Ackermans have a history of serving those in power. Another irony, if you think about it." Her gazed unabashedly raked over Levi's form as if she were appraising livestock at the market. There was nothing prurient in that look, but Levi still struggled not to squirm.

"Why is that?" he muttered.

"The Ackerman's were arguably one of the most powerful clans, Levi," she replied, like a schoolteacher giving a lecture. "Aside from their obvious enhanced abilities, they were also formidable fighters, and thus invaluable to the crown."

Enhanced abilities? Why was she telling him all this?

"The irony," she continued, "is their place in the hierarchy. Why did such a people with all that power serve underneath those who would seek nothing more than to exploit them and use them as weapons?"

The woman stood, the ends of her tippet brushing against her legs, and she slowly approached Levi. "There is power in you, Levi. You felt it, I know, but you don't even know the half of it." She reached out and grasped his chin, not roughly, but he still flinched. "And yet all your life you've lived underneath them." She lifted her eyes—yes, definitely green—upward, as if Mitras was directly above them. And maybe it was; He had no idea where they were.

"What is this?" Levi ground through his teeth, and he would have wrenched his chin away already had he not feared jostling his shoulder. "What do you want from me?" Despite the malice in his tone, he hated how weak the question sounded.

"More like what I want for you, Levi Ackerman." Her hand moved to his neck, the gesture a small mimicry of how he'd accosted her just moments before. "Oh, you just fell right into our laps, didn't you?" It was spoken barely above a whisper, and he wondered if she'd even meant to say it out loud.

She pulled away from Levi suddenly, stalking past her chair before turning again to regard him from this new distance. He felt, again, like a mule before a prospective buyer.

Rikard rose to his feet then, as if some unspoken command had been given. He crossed the room to the lantern, lifting it from its hook on the wall and carrying it with him as he moved to stand beside the red woman.

"He does look a bit like a dog, I suppose, Rikard," she said to the man, nodding at Levi. He probably did look a bit like a dog, all hunched against the darkened wall of the room like he was.

"I'll bring the mongrel a bone later," Rikard added, turning for the door before adding, "hopefully he won't try to bite me." He pushed through the door, taking the lantern and its light with him, leaving the red woman and Levi alone in the darkness.

He heard the woman inhale slowly before she said, "dogs are loyal creatures. You may have lived like one for most of your life, Levi, but be patient." The sound of the door creaking met his ear. "In time I will make you a king."

The door shut soundly. He collapsed to the floor.

"Heichou."

He'd fallen asleep. Or passed out. Either way, some amount of time had passed since the red woman had left him in the dark. There was a faint glow behind his eyelids.

"Heichou." He was straddling the line between sleep and consciousness; The throbbing in his shoulder made him want to succumb again to the blackness, but the incessant whisper kept dragging him back to wakefulness. Then again, maybe it was just a voice in his head. A memory.

"Heichou. Levi, please wake up."

It wasn't her plea but the touch of her cool hand against his burning cheek that made him open his eyes. Mikasa? At first he thought it a fever dream, but her fingers on his face felt so real.

"Ackerman," he rasped, voice shot.

"Here, drink this." She picked up the small cup beside her and lifted it to him. He took it with his good hand and had to force himself to take slow, deliberate gulps so as not to choke. "They must have brought that and the soup while you were out."

Indeed they had, though it wasn't much, just a bowl with what looked like some kind of watery broth and a few carrots. Another lantern had been placed back on the wall, casting a pale, yellow glow about the room.

"How…" he tried, but was overcome with a coughing fit despite his care with the water. He tried again, voice less cracked but still raw. "What are you doing here?" Efran must have been caught. They had been captured. But that wasn't possible, they were outside of the cave when it blew—

"I'm not."

"Come again?"

Mikasa sighed, picking at the wrappings on her arm. She looked terrible, he realized, worse than he, probably. Her clothes were different from before, clean and almost identical to the gowns afforded to patients at…

At the medical ward at HQ.

Mikasa was watching him intently, studying his expression. "I mean…I'm not actually here…with you."

Levi groaned and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. His head hurt way too much for this mystic mumbo jumbo. "Ackerman, you're gonna have to help me out here."

"In the cave," she murmured, and he opened his eyes again, like he already knew what she was going to say. "You felt something, didn't you."

Her gaze bore into his own, onyx eyes steady as she gauged his expression. She looked so different here from the crazed woman he had seen in the cave—gone was that wild rage, and in its place was her usual quiet mien. She looked younger in this light, too, the shadows highlighting the softness of youth that still clung to her face.

He finally nodded, finding he couldn't meet her eyes anymore and instead settled for staring into his cup. "I've felt it before. It's the same feeling we've talked about."

That was a while ago, but he knew she'd remember. That feeling of something awakening.

Mikasa adjusted herself, careful of her arm, so that she was seated beside him with her back to the wall. They sat like this for a few moments, neither one willing to speak. Or knowing what to say.

She was the one to break the silence eventually, her voice so quiet he would have missed it had she not been sitting right beside him. "It felt different this time. It was almost…stronger. I'd never felt that strong before, even during the first time when I was a girl."

"I don't think I've ever felt that drained afterward, either," he added, voice equally soft. She nodded fervently, and he felt encouraged to continue. "It was like…when you looked at me…suddenly I was in two places at once…"

This turned her head to him.

"I was flat on my back getting the fucking daylights choked out of me, and then I was…holding that knife." He turned partway, unable to look at her completely—he still couldn't fathom how she was here—his eyes boring into the tops of her knees. "I could feel his blood running down my hands. I could…I saw…"

A chuckle bubbled out of his throat unbidden, though it lacked mirth. He shook his head in disbelief.

"What did you see?" she breathed, pressing closer.

He did look at her then. "I saw myself. Lying on the ground and staring back." Her eyes widened at his words. "But I could also see you, standing there with the knife."

"Two places at once."

He didn't need to explain further, she already knew. He could see the warring emotions in her dark orbs—the confusion, the fear, the awe. No doubt she saw these in his eyes, too. Levi couldn't ever remember being this close to her outside of sparring. He certainly had never noticed the small, faint birthmark on the corner of her left brow—

"Ow—fuck!" Mikasa's shoulder had bumped into his own, sending a shockwave of pain through the dislocated joint.

"Heichou! What did I do?" She pushed away from the wall, nearly banging her own injured arm in her haste to get away from him. He attempted to lighten the situation by mumbling something about her trying to kill him in an alley and now again while he was chained up, but the distress on her face only deepened.

"I'm fine, brat," he mumbled, wincing as he cradled his injured arm.

"You're obviously not fine." Irritation overtook her features, and he found he preferred that to the helpless look from moments ago. "Is it dislocated?"

He winced again and nodded, closing his eyes against the pain. Fuck, it was really twisted up, he could feel it, and this chain was only making it worse.

"Ok," was all she said, the look of determination on her face reminding him very much of Erwin. Then she reached for his injured shoulder, and he nearly kicked the bowl of soup over in his haste to evade her. Like hell he was letting this brat jostle his joints back into place. She'd probably end up making it worse.

"The fuck you think you're doing, Ackerman?" It came out more as a growl than a demand.

"Easy, we need to get your shirt off that shoulder so I can set it."

"No."

"What do you mean, no?"

"I mean, you're not touching it. That's an order."

"Can you hear yourself? You sound like a child. You can't go around with your shoulder out of its socket like that."

"Well, no shit, but doesn't mean I need you screwing around with it. I know how to set my own damn shoulder."

Mikasa sat back on her heels with a huff, looking away from him at some point on the far wall. Her jaw was tense, but she didn't speak.

Why did all their conversations end this way? One minute they were discussing what had happened in the cave, and the next she was trying to rip his arm off.

"Impossible woman." He hadn't meant to say it out loud. It came out more as a mumble, but she still sent him a glare.

"And you're an irritable little man chained in a dark little room with his arm hanging on by a thread." She leaned forward onto her knees, using the position to loom over him and get in his face. "So quit acting like a pussy and take this like a soldier."

He was quite sure he heard the sound of his jaw unhinging. He recovered quickly, thankfully, glare in place. "Ackerman, I will—"

"You will what? Make me run laps around your dark little room? Fine. I'll do fifty. After I've set your shoulder."

She wasn't going to quit. Mikasa had always been one to push back when it came to him, always. But she was smart, and her unwavering sense of justice and fairness extended past even Jaeger—her sense of duty ultimately made her swallow her pride, do her job, and follow orders.

And yet this was the most egregious display of insubordination he had seen from her yet, and he wondered what gave her the gall. Was it the events that had happened between them? Did she think because of this he was no longer her superior and they now stood on equal footing?

But, his shoulder really hurt.

Without voicing his acquiescence, Levi began to unbutton the front of his shirt with one hand, looking away from her but refusing to drop his chin.

When the buttons refused to cooperate with him, Mikasa swatted his hand away with her own, deftly undoing the remaining buttons. She didn't remove the shirt completely, just eased his bad arm out of its sleeve and let the fabric fall.

"You sure you know what you're doing, brat?" He fought to keep his voice level. He was no stranger to pain—he'd broken his fair share of bones—but the thought of someone who wasn't a trained medic improperly setting his shoulder made him queasy.

Mikasa merely arched a brow at him in response. "Sit up on your knees, we need to get you as straight as possible for this to work. There, yes, just like that." She guided him gently by the tips of her fingers until he was sitting, back straight as possible, on his knees. He caught sight of a splint wrapped with her arm.

"Oi, how fucked up is that arm?" He'd seen the wrap on her arm, but she'd been so stoic that he didn't think it was broken until he saw the splint.

"Hanji said it was a minor fracture. Sit up straight." A look of alarm must have flashed across his face, because she gave him another eyebrow arch. "Don't worry, it's not going to interfere with my ability to set this properly." She was getting defensive.

"I was only wondering if it hurts." He softened his tone, hoping she would see that his concern had been more for her. At this point, he didn't care if she knew what she was doing, he just wanted to use his arm again.

"Oh," she muttered, her fingers fluttering above his deltoids. "It feels better now that it's wrapped. She gave me something for the pain, too."

Her brows furrowed slightly as she regarded his arm, eyes traveling down to the cuff about his wrist.

"Bastards just had to chain this arm. No matter, we'll make it work. Just keep close to the wall for some slack." She dragged some of the chain closer with her knee. "Alright, your elbow should be flexed, humorous flush to your side, like so."

Levi tensed against the pain which radiated down his arm. With his shirt off, he could see the protruding bump on the back of his shoulder, and the sight made him grit his teeth.

Mikasa continued to narrate her work, which had a rather calming effect. He suspected that was why she did it, for she didn't exactly sound unsure of herself. He wondered how often she had done this.

"Ok, this is going to be the most uncomfortable part, but it won't last long," she murmured, pinching the top of his trapezius between her fingers in a firm grip. Then, holding some of the chain along with the cuff around his wrist, she slowly rotated his forearm outwards.

She hadn't lied when she'd told him this would hurt. It did, the pain only building the more she turned his arm.

"Easy, now." Mikasa's voice was calm and gentle through the haze of pain. He bit the inside of his cheek, holding back a groan. Just when he thought it couldn't possibly get any worse—and he was this close to barking at her for messing around—there was a dull pop and the pain almost entirely evaporated.

The relief was immense, and even without moving his arm he could tell he'd regained mobility in the limb. He dropped his head forward with a huff, basking in the liberation from pain.

Mikasa's hand was warm and strong as she massaged the tense muscles of his shoulder. The feeling of her fingers gripping and pressing into his flesh was utterly blissful, and he could already feel the tightness loosening as she worked.

"Better?" she whispered, her breath warm against his neck.

Levi stilled.

In his daze, he hadn't realized that his forehead was currently resting on Mikasa's shoulder. She didn't seemed to mind, just continued to work the knots out of his shoulder, but the position was entirely too…intimate. When was the last time he'd embraced someone?

"Hanji teach you how to reduce a dislocation or something?" Levi muttered, pulling away from her with more force than necessary. Mikasa's eyes widened, as if she'd only just then realized how close they'd been to each other.

"Uh…no, my adoptive father did." She was flustered. He'd made it awkward. "I witnessed Mr. Jaeger set more than a few dislocated shoulders," she added, scrambling to her feet, and the soup bowl once again narrowly missed a kick.

Levi flexed his shoulders, rolling the left one gingerly and relishing in its restored mobility. "Thanks," he said absently as he rubbed the chaffed flesh of his cuffed wrist.

Mikasa paused in her fidgeting, looking genuinely taken aback by his utterance. "Of course, Heichou. I wish I had something to give you for the pain."

Levi shook his head and leaned back against the wall. "Stop fretting, brat." He closed his eyes with a sigh, the coldness of the wall feeling nice against his bruised form. "I can accept the fact that we had…some sort of shared experience in the cave, but that still doesn't really explain your presence here."

She didn't respond, and he figured she was just listening.

"I mean one minute you're at the med ward in HQ and then you, what, just woke up here?" It didn't make any sense. She wasn't some apparition—she'd just popped his shoulder back into place, for fuck's sake, so she was definitely real.

Mikasa remained silent. Was she thinking? "Oi," he grunted, eyes still shut. "You got any thoughts on this?" No answer. He opened his eyes, ready to engage in another quarrel with the brat. "Ackerman…"

The name died on his tongue. She had vanished.

A/N: Well, I hope that was cohesive. Honestly, most of this was written over the course of several 3am insomnia sessions, so I can't account for its clarity. Rivamika quarrels are fun though, hope they didn't sound too off-book. At the very least, I now know how to set a dislocated shoulder?

As always, I appreciate your thoughts! Let me know what you think...