Night brought with it silence, darkness, and for Kenny, work. He had spent that morning and afternoon tending to tracking. It was not always easy to find an MP. It required certain skills like being observant enough to know what different clues meant and having enough grit so that you could get people to talk when they did not want to. Most importantly, it required persistence. Persistence so that you did not give up on stakeouts to find a target, so that even dead ends seemed like mere chances to find better leads, and so that when the urge to quit came, it never won. Kenny was determined it would never win. But it tried that day.

Kenny almost had not returned home so soon. He had found the MP he was looking for and could pick up from other people in the area that he frequented a certain tavern on the surface. What made him happier was that he found where this man lived. That was the type of information he relished getting. Any deranged killer could go and take someone out on the streets, but only Kenny Ackerman could find someone in their own home and kill them there. He almost did it then, but the man was still at the tavern and seemed to not be leaving any time soon. It was not that Kenny was usually in a rush, but he could not ignore the gnawing feeling in his gut. In his line of work, he learned to trust his gut more than his senses. He needed to go back home. Something was wrong.

Fear was no common visitor of Kenny's. It could hardly be considered an acquaintance, but the man felt as though his nerves were working on overdrive all of a sudden as he rushed back home. No comfort was felt as he returned and opened the door, calling out for someone who was not there to answer. Kenny cursed and left again.

"Why'd I encourage him to leave?" he wondered, angry with himself. "He could be anywhere by now."

As quickly as he had gone back, Kenny went to find the boy. With each empty alleyway he passed, his heart raced faster. Finally, he found Levi. He could not remember a time when he felt so enraged as in that moment, seeing the life being drained out of the child. Nearly blind with fury, he attacked. It was all a blur to him until he got to the final man. It was even more of a blur when they returned home. Kenny thought that he had tried to comfort Levi regarding his mother, but the idea seemed so strange that he wondered if he had only imagined that part of the interaction. The memories which were clear were of him leaving that night to go back out to finish what he had started.

So, there Kenny was, watching an MP eating dinner at home. He would go out to work that night. Well, this was his plan anyway. The man was on night patrol according to the information Kenny had received (and the general lack of working he had witnessed during the day). Normally, the killer's mind was only focused on the target's movements and waiting until anyone else was gone. No spouses or kids needed to be hurt. He would wait until they fell asleep before he struck. That day, his mind was still on Levi.

"The kid's got spunk," he thought. "A lot of it. Reminds me of myself at his age, but he needs to learn how to fight. If I hadn't arrived when I did…" Kenny put a hand over his face and tried to clear his mind. "Kuchel, I didn't bring your kid with me just to get him killed."

Interrupting his thoughts, Kenny saw the MP with his family. He had two kids and a wife. It almost looked peaceful and Kenny thought back to the suggestion he had heard the previous day about leaving this life behind. Pushing the idea out of his mind as though it were poisonous, he refocused.

This was what he did for a living. It was not just a type of life–it was his life and not something he could just abandon. When the lights went off, the MP got ready for work and so did Kenny. Just as the door opened, Kenny grabbed the man by his throat and pushed him back into the home. The way the vocal cords were compressed, he was unable to call out to warn his family. Due to the darkness, the other man was unable to see the intruder clearly, but years in the Underground let Kenny's eyes adjust to seeing without light.

"Please," the MP rasped, struggling against the grip and his nearly invisible foe. "I've got a family."

Kenny just glared coldly. "So do I, pal," he answered.

He quickly moved his blade, slitting the throat of the MP. As the killer did, it felt different. It was not as simple a task. That is not to say that it was difficult to kill the MP, but it seemed less like something that should have been done and instead one that must have. Kenny had two mouths to feed now. Killing was what he did and for years, it was all he had known. He had no interest in learning new skills and highly doubted they would be as lucrative. Kenny was unaccustomed to this emotion and loathed it entirely. He loathed what he did next even more. Instead of leaving the body where it was, he moved it out the house and to the side. Something about leaving the corpse there for one of the relatives to find just seemed unnecessarily cruel even though it never bothered him in the past.

"What's happening to me?" he questioned aloud.

He was being reckless with this. What if someone saw him? Not liking how this mission had occurred, Kenny returned home before anyone could notice what had happened. When he got back, Levi was awake.

"Work?" the boy asked.

"Yeah," came the gruff reply.

Kenny was still too off his game to talk, so he began heading to his room.

"You're the Ripper, aren't you? I've heard about you."

This made him stop in his tracks. He kept his head facing the other way. His quietness gave Levi his answer.

"The way you killed the guys today, it was like you had experience."

"Live in the Underground and you'll get experience too."

"It would explain why you didn't want to talk about what you did for work, though."

"Maybe I just don't like people in my business, so mind yours," Kenny snapped.

Levi did not flinch at his tone and still had a calm gaze. "Can you teach me how to do that?"

Another surprise from the boy in a matter of minutes. Kenny was unsure how to respond and assumed he misunderstood the boy.

"To do what?"

"Kill," Levi said as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Why do you want to know how to do that?"

"You just said I'd get experience living here. I might as well be good at it."

"Sure, you'll probably kill someone, but it's not a rite of passage to be an Underground citizen. You don't have to do it too."

"I want to."

"Who are you trying to kill?"

Levi looked down for a moment. "There's someone where my mom and I used to live. He hurt her before we left. I don't think we would have even left if it wasn't for him. She never got sick while we were there."

Clenching his fist, Kenny gritted his teeth as he imagined the scene. "Payback can be nice. I've given it to a lot of people in my days."

"I just don't want him to get away with that. We left and nothing happened to him. He could still be hurting people."

Kenny brought out a blade and looked at it, deep in thought. "Was he strong?"

"Strong enough to not really be affected by all my weight being on his arm."

"Yeah, well, that doesn't mean much," the man said, snorting. "I could head over there–"

"No," Levi interjected. "I want to be the one who did it. She was my mom. It's my responsibility."

The killer tapped the tip of the knife on a table. "Fine, but you'll need to learn more than just how to hold a blade. If you want to kill, you need to learn how to be a killer. You'll have to get stronger. You're small, but that might not be a bad thing. They won't expect you to be able to do anything and that's when you strike."

For the first time, Kenny saw a small smile appear on the boy's face. It quickly faded as he thought more about why he was happy.

"It didn't seem like he treated the others as badly," he mentioned. "I don't know why it was different for Mom."

"Did he know her real name?"

"Yeah."

Kenny sighed. "That explains it."

"What do you mean?"

Again, Kenny sighed. He wanted to tell Levi that it was because Kuchel was an Ackerman and they were a hated family, but he could not. Clearly, his sister did not want him to know about their heritage. Truthfully, Kenny could not blame her. If he did not know, maybe no one else would find out and he would not have to experience the same discrimination they had for so many years. It was a lonely existence to go around the world, hated. Even with concerns about being eaten by titans and the dangers of the Underground, people still found the time to mistreat the Ackermans as though there was nothing better to do. Even when everything was telling people to work together, some still preferred to fight.

Kenny wanted to tell Levi about their family. To him, they had no reason to be ashamed. They were a strong group both in mind and body. That was something any family could be proud of, but others had twisted these facts into some horrible sign of disgrace. Telling Levi who he was would be nothing more than telling everyone he met to treat him like an outcast. He was an orphan in the Underground being raised by a serial killer. The boy had enough to deal with without adding anything else.

"Don't worry about it," he answered, knowing it would not satisfy the child's curiosity but not caring either.

"Kenny, who was my mom really? I can tell that you know."

"She was a good woman. Would learning anything else change your opinions of that?"

"No."

"Then, that's all that matters. That and how you're going to make her proud by avenging her."

Kenny handed Levi the knife. Immediately, the boy demonstrated that he remembered his previous lesson and switched the way he held the handle. The man smirked and crossed his arms.

"Won't be able to do much without a lot of training, so let's get started."