Firstly, I would like to make another shameful declaration. I wanted to confess that I haven't read the manga of Shingeki no Kyojin until recently. And when I said recently, I mean like two days ago. Yeah, I know. Am I seriously a fan? I would say, yes, of course I am! I just hope I didn't get the personality wrong for each character up until now. If I did get them wrong, though, I apologize. Up until recently, I based my opinion about their personality from anime and fanarts. Moushiwake arimasen deshita!

Okay, enough of me being wishy-washy. Thank you Miwokgirl101, hamxham, Seraphicpapilion, AisuRuhi, ca99oline, Nancy Haibara, silentux131, Dinendir, Kim20, MissingLink01, hiyomi, Guest (onii-chan :3), arkcess, Ayexia, Reichan25, alex and Guest for reviewing my fic! Keep them coming~!

By the way, please read my friend's ErenXMikasa fic, Hopeless Love by Nancy Haibara! I promise it's good! ;)

Disclaimer: I don't own Shingeki no Kyojin


That day, it was raining hard, as though the world was reflecting her sadness.

She looked up at the gray clouds, ignoring every drop of water falling relentlessly on her face. Her blue eyes were dead, and her blonde hair was soaked by the rain. She wished she could stay like this forever. She wished she didn't have to look back anymore.

The people there had started to whisper.

"Poor girl… she lost her only family in this age…"

"Oh my, who would take care of her from now on?"

"This happens a lot, right? She'll be eventually brought to an orphanage."

"Yeah, that's for the best."

She tried her best to ignore those unwanted comments and stayed quiet.

Two boys her age approached her, both of them removing their jackets and covered her head with them, preventing the raindrops from falling on her.

"Annie, are you alright?" one of them asked. He sounded gravely concerned.

She slowly nodded.

The other boy seemed to be hesitating. He looked as though he was afraid she would crumble just because of a word from him. But he decided to say it after all. "I'm really sorry, Annie…"

She ignored him. And there was a long pause before she spoke up, "I…"

The two boys quickly listened to her.

"I'm leaving the world of martial arts…"


Chap 6. Lone Wolf


Everyone stood.

Tense and nervous, none of them dared to even move a finger. Today was no ordinary day. Today was the Hygiene Inspection Day. This was the day where the Student Council President, Rivaille-kaichou, performed his favorite duty of checking and criticizing each class' work.

When inspecting the windows, Rivaille made a low sound and the class flinched in unison.

"This class is quite attentive toward this part of the window. Impressive, I might say."

At that, the class let out a sigh of relief.

After ten minutes of heavy atmosphere, the class could finally inhale the air normally again. Rivaille left the class after informing them that the result would be out in two days.

"Goddammit! That was nerve-wrecking!" Reiner commented once he was sure the president was out of sight.

"I couldn't breathe!" Jean groaned.

"Yeah, me too!" Connie added. Cold sweats were still all around his face.

At the back of the class, Sasha was wailing in Mikasa's arm, stating how she was scared shitless just a moment ago. On the other hand, the stoic girl only stroked the potato girl's back to calm her down. "There, there…" she muttered.

Mikasa was just discharged from the hospital this morning and out of her strong insistence, she attended school.

"The President is kinda scary, isn't he, Eren?" Armin smiled nervously at Eren.

"Yeah…" Eren answered while spacing out. His mind was still full of something he saw yesterday at the hospital. The day before, not long after Annie left, he went to follow her again to say that he won't be training again today. But he accidentally saw Reiner and Annie's argument. He heard everything including the one about Reiner being responsible for Annie's Father's death.

Maybe that was why Reiner always followed Annie and cared for her. It was to live down his sin.

"…ren… Eren!"

Eren snapped and faced Armin. "Wh-what?" he asked.

"Were you daydreaming?" the blond asked in worry.

"Eh? No, I was just thinking about things."

"What things?"

"Just things."

From the other side of the class, Mikasa looked intently at Eren, noticing his awkward behavior.


After school, most of them stayed in the class to have a meeting about the festival. They agreed on the drawing system to decide on who's going to wear maid outfits and who's going to wear mascot costume. And under some people's suggestion, they added two 'butlers' into the box just to make things interesting.

This was pretty much what's going on in the guys' mind:

'I have to get that bulter outfit even if it kills me!' by Reiner

'I don't care if I can get the bulter one as long as it's not maid! Have to make sure Mikasa gets the maid one!' by Jean.

'Butler! Butler! Butler!' by Connie.

'I have to avoid the maid one…' by Marco.

'I hope Reiner gets the maid one…' by Bertholdt.

'I'm not letting Mikasa get what she wants! I am so not going to be a maid!' by Eren.

'Please don't let me be a maid!' by Armin.

As they all already had their own goals and were arranging plans in their head while laughing dangerously, Annie took over Reiner's place and read the papers he had prepared beforehand. Despite everything, she was the class secretary after all. She calmly instructed the girls to draw from the box.

"What about the boys, Annie?" Christa asked.

"Ignore them. We don't have time to wait for their ridiculous plan-arranging."

The girls nodded and followed Annie's instructions. After they were done, Annie went to the guys' gathering place and shoved them the box. "Draw." She commanded with one word.

"Eh!? Annie, when did you—"

"Draw."

The guys hesitantly drew the papers from the box, all the while their perfect plans being shattered to pieces. And once everyone had drawn their paper, Annie drew the last one.

"Goddammit! I'm a maid!?" Eren was the first one to yell. As if on cue, Mikasa quickly rushed to his side to confirm the paper. A smile formed on her face, "Good for you, Eren." She gave a thumb-up.

"Good for you! My pride's now a history!" Eren freaked out.

"…Eren…" Armin called with a lifeless voice.

"What's the matter, Armin?" Eren asked. The blonde showed him his paper with 'maid' written in it. "We're on the same boat…" his tears flew downward like waterfalls. And the two friends hugged each other while trying to heal their wounded pride.

"I got mascot costume! Way to ruin my hopes!" Connie whined.

"Still better than me, baldie! Trade with me, dammit!" Eren freaked out.

"Dream on! I'll only trade with butler!"

As the two of them argued, suddenly…

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

The whole class went silent when Reiner let out a long, hysterical scream. Everyone gathered around him to look at his paper which had 'maid' on it, some of them suppressed a giggle while the others looked at him with pity in their eyes. They couldn't imagine this hulk wearing maid outfit.

"Do your best, Reiner."

"Hang in there, dude."

"You can do it!"

"Stop your encouraging words, guys! You aren't making me feel better!" Reiner kneeled on the floor and hit it multiple times.

Sasha and Christa got maid while Ymir got mascot costume. Ymir kept talking about how she would protect Christa from the wolves with lusty eyes. On the other hand, Jean, Marco and Betholdt got mascot costume.

"Who are the butlers!?" Reiner questioned urgently.

They looked around just before both Annie and Mikasa showed them their papers; those two papers with 'butler' on them. Those two papers the guys in the class had been longing for.

"Why girls!? Why do the butlers have to be girls!? There's absolutely something wrong with this result!" Reiner complained.

"If you really want to be butler I don't mind trading with you."

Mikasa's voice suddenly sounded like music from heaven to Reiner. He quickly looked at Mikasa in utter surprise, "Are you serious?" he asked in disbelief.

Mikasa nodded.

Annie saw this and she remembered that this maid and mascot costume system was originally created to punish Reiner. There was no meaning for it if he didn't wear maid outfit. Before Mikasa could trade her paper with Reiner, Annie walked to her side and whispered something to her. Reiner could've sworn he saw Mikasa's eyes glowed in high spirit before she pulled her paper toward her again, securing it in her arms.

"I'm sorry, Reiner, this is my treasure."

"What the hell!?" Reiner retorted. Then he looked at the other person who owned the 'butler' paper. In a glace, he knew that it was impossible to trade it from her.

Reiner sighed in defeat and Annie slightly smirked in victory.


He decided to go easy with the smaller girl.

He launched himself at her, planning to end this with a single arm lock, but to his surprise, she managed to slip away from his grip. And she only needed a single kick to paralyze him entirely.

He fell onto the floor and curled himself into a ball, trying to ease the pain in his ankle.

"Wanna continue?" she asked, looking down at him.

The blond gritted his teeth and quickly stood up again, enduring the pain. Then he quickly ran at the girl in attempt to grab her with both of his hands this time, but to his annoyance, she managed to slip away again. But this time, she didn't kick him.

"Admit your defeat and I might teach you this cool move," she smirked.

The cheering from before had died out.

At first, he hesitated. But next, he grinned. "I lose."

"At least you're sportive."

"Hahaha. Of course. But you really like to run away, huh? Uh…"

"Annie Leonhardt…" she introduced herself.

"Reiner Braun. Nice to meet you!" he grinned.

Annie was quiet for a couple of seconds. Then she spoke up, "As for your question; all a frail girl like me could do is run away. If I run away, I can live."


It was unusual today, as Annie sorted out the documents she had written before. Today was the first time she acted like a class secretary at all. She wrote the voting result just now and everything that was discussed in the meeting. She even offered to bring it to the Student Council room.

"Well then, I'm going now…" Annie informed to Reiner before going. The blond nodded and Annie made her way out.

Eren noticed how Reiner kept looking at Annie even after she exited the class and approached him.

"Why are you looking at her like that, Reiner?" Eren questioned.

The blond let out a rough sigh, "Hey, Eren, did Annie tell you something about her past? I mean, you've been hanging out with her a lot, right? Did she open up to you?" he asked.

"Why the random questions?" Eren raised a brow.

"I can't stand seeing her like this anymore, Eren. It has been six years since that incident. I just don't know how to make her forgive me…" Reiner messaged his temple as he talked.

Eren, getting desperate especially after what he overheard yesterday, went to sit beside Reiner. "Is it something you can't talk about? If you can say it, I'm gonna listen."

Reiner looked at Eren in the eyes and he could tell that Eren wasn't just asking simply because he was curious but because he really wanted to help them with their problem. The blond inhaled deeply before saying, "This is a very serious matter and remember, none of the things I'm gonna tell you is a joke so listen carefully. And don't tell anyone about it…"

His eyes firm, Eren nodded. "I won't."

Again, Reiner inhaled. Next, he began his story, "I met Annie seven years ago in her dad's dojo. She rarely came to the dojo, but that day, for the first time since I joined, she visited…"


Summer seven years ago…


The little girl made her way across the training hall, searching for the man who owned this place; her father. She didn't tell him ahead that she was coming here so she had to look for him by herself.

"Hey, you heard that? They say that girl's Leonhardt-sensei's daughter."

"What? When you mention sensei's daughter it's got to be a female hulk, right?"

"Look! She's such a shortie!"

Annie noticed a blond boy grinning at her, not kindly but mockingly, as though he was looking down on her. As though he was confident he could defeat her.

"Hey, you there!" the blond approached her, followed by a timid boy who seemed to be his friend. "You're sensei's daughter, right? Let's see which one of us is stronger!" he challenged. He was quite big for his age.

The other boys had started cheering on him.

Not losing her cool, Annie faced him and raised her arms to head level. "Come at me," she said calmly.

It didn't take a long time for Annie gain full control of the situation and winning the competition. But she would always say that she was a frail girl and that all she could do was run away. Reiner considered it to be her being modest or something of the likes.

And that was pretty much their first meeting.

Ever since that day Annie would visit every week and Reiner would beg her to teach the 'cool moves' to him, but after a while, he realized that she was only teasing him by making him her sandbag. When he mentioned it to her, she just laughed contently as though saying he was the stupid one for obeying whatever she said.

She had such a terrible personality for a girl her age.

But the more Reiner and Bertholdt hung out with her they noticed how kind she actually was. The way she always paid attention to the tiniest scratch they had and treated them afterward. The way she silently cheered for them at the sidelines. The ways she secretly smiled when she spent her time with them. They knew more than anyone, the side of Annie which was kept hidden from people.

And that day, one day before the end of summer vacation, marking one month since their first meeting, Annie invited both Reiner and Bertholdt to her house.

"Whoa! This is cool! You won all of this!?" Reiner exclaimed when he saw the row of golden cups and medals being displayed in the living room.

Annie, being stoic as always, simply nodded.

"You must be feared by the bullies in your school, aren't you, Annie?" Bertholdt commented.

Annie went quiet for a while and Reiner looked at her in puzzlement. Could it be a scary girl like her was bullied in her school?

"There aren't any bullies…" she muttered.

Growing suspicious of her statement, Reiner decided to check on Annie in secret whenever he had time, and it was true that no one in the school bullied her. True, she was a lone wolf and didn't have any friends, but it was more like she was feared rather than bullied.

But something just didn't feel right about this.

On a certain Sunday months after that, the three of them were playing at the local park. That day, Annie and Reiner got into an argument. It was nothing unusual. They fought and then Bertholdt had to play peacemaker between them.

"I didn't do it on purpose, alright? It's your fault for putting it aside anyway!"

"My fault!? You've got guts, Reiner. I saved it for the last! Take responsibility and go buy another one for me!"

"Why me? Ask Bert the errand boy!"

"EH!?" Bertholdt gasped.

"Is that how you use a friend!? You're the worst, Reiner! You jerk who doesn't understand what guilt means!" Annie glared. Quickly, she raised her arms to head level, forming her signature pose. As if on cue, Reiner also readied his own pose.

All of a sudden, the wind blew harder.

Standing between the two, Bertholdt sweated nervously. But before he could say anything to stop his two friends, Reiner had launched himself toward Annie all the while letting out an exaggerating battle cry.

Annie prepared her usual pattern in mind, but today, instead of gripping her neck, Reiner gripped her waist, startling her. Using all his might, he lifted her up from the ground. Flustered, Annie elbowed his skull and kicked his chin, resulting in him falling backward and the two of them hitting the ground.

Bertholdt jawdropped at the surreal scene which just occurred before him.

Still lying on the ground, Reiner rubbed his head. "Ouch! What the hell, Annie?"

"It's your own fault, dummy!" Annie rubbed her chin. Apparently she hit her chin when they fell. "What's with that sudden new move?" she glared at him while standing up and brushed the dirt off her clothes.

"That's my line! You did me good just now, eh!?"

"You—" Annie stopped when she saw a group of girls her age walked pass the park. Reiner and Bertholdt exchanged looks before looking back at her.

"What's wrong, Annie?"

She shook her head, "Nothing…" her voice trailed off.


Today was Tuesday, Reiner had class duty and told Bertholdt went home by himself. Usually, Bertholdt would wait for him but if Reiner told him to go home, he would do so.

As usual, he stopped by at Annie's school to check on her.

He saw a timid blonde girl running slowly while carrying a bucket of water and followed her out of curiosity. That girl gave the bucket to a group of girls of four or five behind the school building and joined them. Bertholdt decided to hide and observe the situation. It seemed like a bullying was happening.

The group of girls was surrounding a much smaller girl; Annie.

Bertholdt gasped but decided to observe longer.

A brown-haired girl, who appeared to be the leader of the group, smirked menacingly at Annie, who was still stoic as always. "Oh my, Leonhardt. Don't you think the boys have been hanging around you too much lately? Just because you're a little cute, don't act all high and mighty."

Annie merely listened to her.

"Yeah! Get off your high horse!" another girl added.

"Phoebe!" one of the girls called the leader. "I saw her hanging out with two unknown guys in a park once! I think she got sick of this school's guys and decided to trap the guys from another school!" she then smirked at Annie.

Annie looked the other way, too tired to deal with them. She just hoped it's going to be over soon.

"My, my, how despicable…" Phoebe's lips twisted in disgust.

Clicking her tongue, Annie finally decided to speak, "Can I go home now? I have to prepare dinner."

Phoebe's eye twitched. In rage she grabbed the bucket of water from the other girl's hands and splashed it all over the small girl's body. Annie coughed a couple of times to get rid of the water entering her mouth. The timid girl from before quickly went to her side, "Are you alright?" she asked in worry.

Annie nodded while still coughing.

"Leave her alone, Historia. Come along. We have to leave before anyone see us." The group of girls left and Historia, in the moment of hesitation, was convinced by Annie that she should go. Historia apologized to Annie before trailing behind the girls.

Annie rolled her shirt to squeeze the water out as much as she could manage. She untied her hair and squeezed the water out of it too. "Troublesome girls…" she muttered before going.

There, Bertholdt showed himself.

"Annie…"

"Bertholdt?" she widened her eyes in shock. "You're not supposed to be here today…" she muttered.

"Reiner told me to go home ahead. I'm glad I did…" he looked deeply into her.

She avoided his gaze.

"You're bullied after all…"

"…"

"Why didn't you tell us anything?"

"…"

"We're friends, aren't we?"

"…"

"Say something, Annie…"

Annie bit her lip and clenched her fists. "I had no choice!" she finally shouted.

"Why, Annie? You're very strong…"

"It may work on boys… But girls make a big deal out of every single scratch they have. If the school found out, they're going to call my dad. That's not a wise thing to do!"

"But… you prefer to suffer forever like this?" Berholdt frowned sadly.

"My dad once told me only a smart decision would save you from a deathly situation. You didn't have to be the strongest person in the world. All you had to be was someone who knew when to retreat. Be someone who could recognize her own weakness and didn't let pride consumes her." She gritted her teeth, "If I run away, I can live."

"This is not running away! You're letting them do whatever they want to you!"

"This is running away…" Annie walked pass him, "Don't tell Reiner anything…" and made her way out of the school ground. Bertholdt followed from behind and decided to not talk about it anymore.

On their way, they heard someone calling for them from behind.

"Oi, Annie, Bert!" he ran toward them while waving his hands. It seemed he was done with his cleaning duty. "Whoa! Why are you wet, Annie? You fell into a sewer or something?" he asked.

"No, I fell into the school's fishpond."

"What? Seriously?" Reiner blinked dumbly.

"Yeah…" Annie answered shortly then she continued her walk.

"Now that you mention it, you smell like fish—umph!" Reiner rolled into a ball, his hands gripping his stinging stomach which was elbowed by Annie just now.

"Not very tactful, are you?" she commented without looking back.


The next day, Annie stayed home because of fever. Reiner and Bertholdt visited her house and took care of her until she got better. However, a week later, on the same Tuesday, the bullying occurred again. It got worse when one of the girls informed Phoebe the leader about Reiner and Bertholdt's taking care of Annie. Annie had started to grow suspicious of that girl. How did she know everything?

"Know your place, Leonhardt! You disgust me!" Phoebe spat on Annie's face.

The blonde squinted her eyes and wiped it, 'You disgust me too…' she mentally said.

"What's with that look? Are you challenging Phoebe, Leonhardt?" one of the girls said. The girl started pulling Annie's hair until her hair-band snapped, untying her hair. The other girls started pulling too, and Phoebe gave them a command.

"Throw her into the fishpond! She'll be very smelly!" Phoebe giggled.

The girls did as she commanded and made their attempt to pull Annie near the fishpond. Slightly panicked, Annie tried to resist them. But her power was nothing compared to four girls' strength and she finally gave in.

With a loud splash, Annie was drowning in the pond. The water itself wasn't that deep, but Annie's size was much smaller than average kids, and it did her good.

The girls had begun laughing mockingly at her.

When Annie was in the verge of losing consciousness, someone ran toward them and jumped into the pond, taking her in his arms and making sure her head was above the water. Once she was breathing normally, he brought them out of the pond.

The girls were shocked and began whispering.

"H-hey, isn't that one of the guys who often hangs out with Leonhardt?"

"Shit, gotta get out of here!"

"We're dead if he tells on us!"

"Let's just say we didn't mean it, okay?"

Phoebe stepped forward and faced Reiner, but before he could say a thing, Reiner yelled in her face. "What do you think you were doing!? Annie can't swim! If something happened just now, I'm gonna make sure you pay me good time, you heard me!? Dammit, I'm glad Bert offered to do my cleaning duty today!" his face was red in anger.

The girls cowered in fear and apologized in unison before running away.

Letting out a rough sigh, Reiner turned around and squatted beside Annie who was still coughing out the water that entered her mouth.

"It's humiliation… being saved by you… of all people…" Annie said in-between coughs.

"What's wrong with you? You flipped me down like I weighted a feather but you couldn't lay a finger on those limp girls! It's so not you! The Annie I know fights and wins!" Reiner stood up again and offered her a hand, "Come on, stand up. You're going to get sick again if you don't go home soon."

The girl glared at his hand before getting up by herself, "What are you acting all cool for?" she muttered in irritation.

"Well, I am cool." He grinned. "I bet those bullies won't dare to get near you anymore!"

Annie sighed and picked up her bag before going away, Reiner following from behind.

They thought it was over….

…But it was still far from it.

TO BE CONTINUED


Alright, I hope I did everything well. Simply that.

And the next chapter will be about the death of Annie's dad D: Stay tuned! ;3

And yeah, the Historia from above is like in Christa, okay? It's not some girl who coincidentally had the same name as her…

See you next time~