Between two worlds

by Angie296

Mizuki ends up inside the walls without remembering where she came from. All she knows is that she does not belong to that world, and that she wants to return home. To do so, she has no choice but to rely on the Survey Corps, and on her golden eyes capable of tinging the color of blood, inherited from her father, the last descendant of the Uchiha clan. Levi X OC

7. Chapter 6

Chapter 6: Until the day I die, I'll spill my heart for you - part 3

Story of the year - Until the day I die

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"I see. So that's what happened."

Erwin listened to Mizuki's account of the last part of the expedition sitting behind the mahogany desk of his office. Once she reached the point of the charge against the abnormal, however, he got up - the girl, standing in front of him with her legs spread apart and her hands clasped behind her back, interrupted her speech for a moment - and began pacing back and forth until he stopped in front of the wide window, turning his back to her.

"How is Willy Anderson?"

"He's in the infirmary now. The operation itself went well - a real miracle, considering the circumstances. Now, however, comes the most critical part: we have to pray that the wound doesn't get infected."

The commander nodded; then returned to sit at his desk. He appeared tired, as if ten years of life had come crashing down on him all at once. He peered intently first at Levi - elegantly slumped on the small sofa at the side of the room, legs crossed and one arm stretched across the backrest - and then at Mizuki. Before she was summoned, they had given her an hour to wash and change, and now she faced Erwin in pants and shirt, her perfumed hair loose over her shoulders.

"You disobeyed an order," Erwin observed in a casual tone, intertwining his hands.

"I know."

"And you also did a very stupid thing."

"I know."

Erwin sighed. "Mizuki, you do realize that we are a military force, right? And that we therefore follow very strict rules, the most important of which is that a superior officer's orders are sacred?"

"I know that, too. And when you gave the order to retreat, commander, did you know that a living person was still stuck under the wagon?" Mizuki spoke in a colorless, calm tone, but her expression was hard as stone.

Levi rose and bent his torso forward, annoyed by the brat's impudence.

The commander's gaze, faced with that challenge, also grew dim. "Yes, I knew that."

"I guessed."

"There is one thing you must learn if you want to stay here, Mizuki. I know you didn't choose to join the Corps, but that doesn't change the fact that that's how things work around here. When a superior gives an order, especially if it's me, it's because he or she has weighed the advantages and disadvantages of every foreseeable scenario on a scale, including possible losses. In the Survey Corps, lives have an order of importance."

Levi contemplated the brat clenching her fists so tightly that her nails dug into the bandages that wrapped her palms. "For example?"

"For example, the life of a cripple is worth less than that of four soldiers who are still healthy. For example, a cripple's life is worth less than yours."

"All this just because I am..." began Mizuki, but she interrupted herself midway through, as if she had remembered that uttering certain words was an unforgivable taboo.

Erwin indulged in the first testy gesture since the conversation had begun - a clear hint of how the expedition had tested him: with his open hand he tapped the table, producing a dry, imperious sound. "You are what you are, and there's no point in discussing that now. Do you think you understood what I just said?"

The brat's fists contracted even more. "I understand it. But I don't agree with it."

"He asked you if your little shitty head can grasp the concept, not what your opinion on it is," hissed Levi, finding unbearable the calmness with which Erwin was taking in, one after another, Mizuki's disrespectful outbursts.

The commander, however, waved for him to restrain himself; as for him, his calm and weary gaze remained fixed on the girl's. "It could not have been otherwise. For every book I've lent you and you've devoured, you and I have always had a different, if not entirely divergent opinion, and I don't think it's just because of the age factor. We see the world too differently to find common ground. Unfortunately for you, though, I'm the one who makes decisions here." Erwin retrieved his pen resting beside the blank sheet of paper in front of him, with a handful of strokes he wrote a few sentences and finally affixed his signature. "A week's detention in a cell should be enough to set your mind straight."

The brat had the good idea not to engage in inappropriate humor, at least at that juncture. To be precise, she did not react at all. She seemed completely unconcerned about the disciplinary sanction that had just been imposed on her, as if it was a matter that did not concern her at all.

"Levi will escort you."

"I can go by myself. I know where the dungeons are, and I won't run away."

"This is not a fucking field trip," hissed the captain, getting to his feet. Just the thought of the amount of paperwork ahead of him gave him a headache, and adding one more task to the list - which promised to get even more complicated, considering the subject involved - increased his bad mood.

At that moment, the office door swung wide open. Even Levi jerked slightly at the totally unexpected event. Lavinia burst into the room with her face flooded with tears; she surveyed the rather astonished onlookers who had turned in her direction, and then her gaze fixed on Mizuki. "Is it true?"

As was to be expected, the news of Mizuki's fight had already spread around the entire Corps.

The girl did not reply; or, rather, her guilty silence was an all too eloquent response.

Lavinia quickly advanced until she brought herself in front of her, raised a hand and slapped her with all the strength she had in her body.

Mizuki did not react to even that gesture.

Mumbling an apology for interrupting the meeting, Lavinia hastily left the room, closing the door behind her. The only trace of her sudden as well as surprising passage was the flushed cheek that Mizuki was probing with her hand. "That really hurt a lot," she said.

"Things really are so fucked up around here. They're all doing whatever the fuck they want." With that comment, Levi approached Mizuki. "Come on, get your ass moving. I want you out of the way faster than right now."

The commander's voice stopped them when Levi had already placed his fingers on the handle. "One last thing before you go. Mizuki, can you confirm the contents of the message Finnian brought back to me at the end of the meeting, at the fortress?"

The girl, standing in front of the door, replied without the slightest hesitation. "Yes. Those overturned logs in the middle of the forest - I counted five of them - did not fall due to natural causes, or the action of giants. The cut was clean and precise; and I assure you that if that work didn't look like a barricade, I don't know what could look like one."

"It is more than possible that it was a human being's doing.

Until three years ago, those territories were not under the control of giants. What interests me is the second detail." Erwin studied his interlocutor carefully, not missing even one of the shades of expression on her face. "How can you say that the cut was made in recent times?"

A small smile escaped Mizuki. "My mother had a flower store; as a child I spent entire days watching her work, and she taught me many things. Among them, that in the period between two and six months after a tree is cut, the grain of the wood gradually changes color because the log devitalizes, taking on a dull hue tending toward yellowish. The logs I saw in that forest, on the other hand, were a beautiful bright green. The cut was recent, I have no doubt about that."

Erwin nodded as an indecipherable flash crossed his gaze. In an instant, the fatigue and worry that, just five minutes earlier, had aged him by at least ten years, seemed to vanish, and he looked again like the young man in the prime of life that he actually was.

"Ah, one last thing. I think this information is of more interest to Hanje than to you, so please pass it on. That abnormal giant I faced... well, I just want to clarify that I didn't throw myself at it without a plan. I counted the time it took him to lift and lower his foot back down and calculated that by running I would be able to get under it without being crushed. It took three seconds to move its left foot, five for the right; an incredibly long time, when you think about it, and more than enough time for my plan."

Levi clicked his tongue in annoyance, because what the brat had just described sounded to him like anything but a plan.

"The reason for this time lag and the slowness with which he moved his right foot is that his left leg was much shorter than the other. I think Hanje might be interested in that."

Erwin wrinkled his thick eyebrows. "How did you notice all these details? The fight only lasted a handful of seconds. Are you really sure?"

"Yes. As a doctor, if I hadn't noticed such an imbalance, we'd have a pretty big problem. Plus..." Mizuki brushed a fingertip over the skin next to the corner of her left eye, as if she were brushing away a speck of dust, a gesture that was unconscious and, even in its simplicity, allusive. "... My eyes are never wrong."

OOO

Levi observed the profile of the brat who, sitting at the desk set against one of the cell walls, was writing sentences in her neat, neat handwriting. She kept her head bowed and too close to the paper, perhaps to compensate for the dim flame of the lamp; or perhaps to avoid any kind of eye contact with him.

As soon as she had set foot in the deserted dungeon, she had asked him - in a suspiciously courteous and reverent manner - to wait a few moments, before leaving, because she wanted to write some recommendations for Dr. Michaelson, who was in charge of the surveillance of the injured and, especially, of Willy during her detention. She trusted him - she added, arranging a lock of hair behind her ear - but his scientific approach was a little too old-fashioned for her taste.

Those had been the first words coming out of her mouth since they had left Erwin's office.

Levi had escorted her towards the dungeon, walking ahead of her at a brisk pace, without turning around, because every time he laid his gaze on her, anger pressed on his chest, ready to explode again, and, this time, he felt that it would not merely express itself in a silent, unforgiving glance.

Such a loss of control on his part should not have happened even under drastic circumstances such as those that had occurred outside the walls. Never. And now it was not to be repeated.

So, leaning against the wall of that filthy, dirty hole, he waited; without looking at her, pretending she did not exist. Until he found himself intent on pointing his eyes at her a first time, and averting them, with an irritated snap of his tongue. He carried on ignoring her, but again the image of her hunched over and backlit profile penetrated his view.

She sat quietly, not giving a damn about the whole situation.

About him, about Erwin, about detention. About herself.

Maybe it was due to fatigue, or maybe it was due to the poor dungeon lighting or the silence that reigned strangely unchallenged and broken only by their breaths, but it happened again.

A hidden little door in his mind opened wide.

"You don't give a shit that Erwin threw you into this filthy hole, do you?"

Mizuki raised her head, but did not look in his direction. Instead of answering, she replied by asking him another question. "May I ask why you are so angry with me?"

Because you almost kicked the bucket out there, and you don't give a damn.

"Because dealing with a brat who thinks she knows more than anyone else, about life, and that she can do whatever the fuck she wants pisses me off."

Mizuki lowered her head, and took to fiddling with a strand of hair, wrapping it around a finger. "I see."

"I know what you're thinking."

"What do you suppose I'm thinking about?"

"Fuck you, brat."

She did not reply but finally spun slowly in her chair to face him. The torchlight fell back on her shoulders, plunging her face into darkness.

"Here's the little champion of justice who prioritizes her precious comrades, and doesn't give a damn about orders."

"That's right. Without the bit about the champion of justice, though."

No trace of hesitation or remorse in her voice.

Levi had turned into an automaton, dominated by a single instinct, icy and destructive.

He advanced to the prison bars, mauling that petite figure with his eyes, slumped in her chair in an attitude of quiet placidity.

"You think not following orders makes you smart?"

No answer.

"I bet you enjoy watching us follow orders like dogs and croak. You know what? Fuck you."

Silence fell, interrupted only by the crackling of the dying flames encased in the lamp.

Damn it, why wasn't she saying anything?

He was the one who locked himself in an inappropriate and contemptuous muteness. Not her. Not her, so loud, full of life, endowed with an answer and a solution for every problem.

Mizuki stood up suddenly and, with exasperating slowness, walked until she came within a step of the cell grate. At close range, at last, Levi could observe her face. Purple circles under her eyes, dry lips, amber eyes dark as resin in which camped the will to resist an unknown temptation. She studied him for a few moments, and then seemed to make a decision: her previously tense shoulders relaxed, and she sighed imperceptibly.

She parted her lips. She had succumbed to temptation.

"Where I come from, a certain bedtime story is told to children. As a child I used to ask my mother to tell it over and over again, because I believed it embodied the essence of what it means to be..." Her voice lowered a degree, despite the fact that they were alone, and she spoke the word so softly that, no matter how close, Levi struggled to hear it. "...a ninja. The story is about a man...a very gifted and promising man who had it all: a bright future, a requited love, a loving family. He was a gentle, peace-loving soul who would give life - his life - to protect the Village. Yet... yet many shadows lurked in his seemingly perfect existence. His clan, for one thing, was plotting in the shadows to obtain an even more prestigious role of power, even at the cost of triggering a civil war that would involve the entire population and result in countless innocent victims. Thus, one of the Village's high authorities made a decision. The promising young man was given an order that no one else but him would be able to carry out."

Levi listened to her without uttering a word, aware that - again - he found himself in the position of becoming a witness to one of the rare occasions when Mizuki - usually heedless of the opinions of others - had felt compelled to provide explanations.

His fury lay cowering in the shadows, temporarily silenced by that clumsy attempt at justification.

"He was ordered to eliminate the threat to the peace of the Village. He was ordered to exterminate his entire family."

How on earth could that be a kid's story? Only someone like Kenny could have convinced himself of that. Levi had no difficulty picturing him whispering it in his ear to wish him sweet dreams.

"He... he did it. He carried out that order to protect his own ideal. His loyalty to the Village, his dream, were stronger than the bond of blood. He carried out the order, but he did not succeed to the end. He succeeded in eliminating all of them, with the exception of his brother who was only seven years old. And so, he was forced to leave the Village and become an outlaw, haunted by remorse, by the people he had betrayed by disregarding the absoluteness of the order, and by his brother's hatred, because he had been guilty of two very serious faults: one to the common conscience, and the other to the ninja code."

Slowly, by an inch with each word from the brat, the wide-open door in his mind began to creak shut.

"As a child I loved this story, because I believed it represented a perfect example of what a ninja must not be. A ninja must follow orders, no matter what the consequences and his personal feelings. All because there is a greater good to be pursued, and someone more entitled and farsighted than you to guide you."
The brat's hands twitched slightly. Apart from that insignificant gesture, not the slightest emotion shone through in her; as always, after all, when she was speaking about herself.

"And then I really became a ninja. I never followed the common rules, I admit it, but ethics had to deal with my bad temper." She laughed softly, but it was a merely formal externalization demanded by the circumstances. Compared to the sound she usually made, that parody of a laugh resounded like a mournful death knell. " I respected orders, though, the really important ones. And one day I was given an order by a superior. An order I neither understood nor could explain; but I carried it out anyway, and carried it through to the end. Because I believed in the moral of the story I adored as a child."

Mizuki hesitated, interrupting the tale. Levi waited for her to continue, without straining her, because waiting for the really important things had never weighed on him.

"What happened ... is not so relevant, for the sake of this talk. I can only tell you that it was terrible. On that occasion, someone who had suffered the consequences of my actions asked me why that terrible event had occurred. And I did not know what to answer. Do you realize that? The fact that I had carried out an order that I did not understand didn't seem an acceptable answer. And that was how I realized something. I realized that until then I had been a stupid brat, and that I would never be a good ninja. Nor a good soldier, for that matter. And that I would never again do something that had been decided by someone else, without understanding it and convincing myself that it was the right solution. That from that point on, I would decide for myself what I would or would not do. Whatever happened, I would be able to accept it because I would be able to answer that question - why? - if it had been asked."

Mizuki took another step closer to the bars and to him; to divide their faces, now there was nothing but the iron bars of the cell.

"If Willy had died crushed by that giant, and I had been asked why it had happened, what could I have said? That I ran away because some guy on a horse whose name I don't even know ordered me to? If Captain Finnian's family had wanted to know why, although he fell rushing to the aid of a comrade, that comrade had then died abandoned like a dog, what could I have said?"

The brat raised a hand and, for a moment, Levi thought that she would touch his cheek. But her fingers wrapped around the bar, searching for a handhold to help her bear the weight of her confession.

"Why do you follow the commander's orders, even though you are fully aware of the possible consequences and hate to see people die?"

Because I trust him and his judgment. Levi did not utter those words. There was no need.

"Exactly," she said in fact, with a bitter smile, as if she had read his mind. "That's right. I can't. I don't trust anyone's judgment. I want to, but I can't. I've tried, believe me, but I can't do it anymore. So no, captain: I don't consider myself smart for not following orders. I consider myself to be just a brat who wanted to be a good ninja, but was forced to accept that this is an unattainable dream, and will forever remain so. No, I do not laugh under my breath when I watch you carry out orders and return mutilated. I envy you."

Mizuki let a moment pass, during which her expression remained neutral and indifferent. For she cared nothing, or little, about herself. After that, that passing cloud abandoned the girl's face to give way to the usual sly smile; but the eyes did not shine with the light, soft and golden, that Levi had come to know. She lifted the hand still abandoned down her side, slipping it between the bars, to tuck the folded paper with instructions for the doctor into his coat pocket. "Thank you for the errand, captain. And good night. Try to get some rest."

Levi watched her turn and move a few steps towards the interior of the cell. She stumbled, a motion she tried to downplay with a shake of her head.
She is small. She is so small.

She was just seventeen years old - almost eighteen, she would correct him - and living in an unfamiliar and hostile world, forced, in order to survive, to deny her identity and fight for a cause she did not believe in. Within the last twenty-four hours she had barely slept two hours; taken down three giants; witnessed the extermination of her own team; risked being wiped out herself; amputated the foot of a rejected lover; suffered beatings, scratches, a slap from her best friend; and gotten a week's detention.

And, last but not least, faced the wide-open door and the fury that had sprung from it, trusting him - again - with details of her history that she probably would rather have kept secret.

Despite it all, she kept her shoulders straight and her head erect. No tears ran down her face. She was looking forwards, and her gaze, for sure, brimmed with hope and determination.

The only hint of her fragility was the fact that she had stumbled.

He guessed that she looked forward to solitude, so that she could curl in on herself and abandon herself to contemplation of memories, of mistakes she believed she had stumbled into, of lives she could have saved and had slipped through her fingers.

He guessed that there would be many of such moments over the course of that week of detention.

Alone, inexorably alone; holed up in the four walls of her mind, where light could not filter through.

Another little door, different from the cave where seething emotions dwelled, timidly opened, an almost invisible chink, and Levi reached out a hand through the bars, grasping the collar of Mizuki's shirt, before pulling her towards himself.

He tried to carry out the gesture gently, dosing the superhuman strength coursing through his veins, but all the same Mizuki's body slammed against the railing. She stood still for a few moments, then giggled and ran her hands over her face. "I didn't expect to pacify you, captain, but I honestly didn't think I would make it worse either."

He did not respond, but neither did he let go of the grip on her collar, and kept holding her pressed against the iron bars.

"At least I came back alive, did you see? Just as I promised you," Mizuki ventured to whisper, almost shyly.

Levi gazed at his hand still clasped around the collar of her shirt; strands of curly hair of hers tickled his skin. Savoring that delicate sensation, he squinted his eyes. "Good thing, I'd say. If you were also a liar, there would really be nothing left of you to save."

This made her laugh and, for the first time since returning to the walls, it was a real and not artificial sound. "I guess not, given the mess I made during my first scouting."

"Yeah. Knowing you, you must have carried out half the orders you were given. In giving you only one week's detention, Erwin has been far too lenient. You should rot in here for a whole month, as far as I'm concerned. However..." His fingers, in moving up to the top of her head, brushed her neck, and he felt the shiver of surprise caused by that unexpected contact. "... Thanks to you that boy is alive now, isn't he? Without a foot, but alive. At least the fruit of your bullshit was not entirely catastrophic."

His hand rested on her head and, roughly, ruffled her hair. It was still damp from the shower, and a faint scent of cleanliness wafted from the disheveled strands, tickling his nostrils.

He noticed that she was holding her breath, and he thought he heard her lips parting, as if she were about to speak.

He waited.

The silence stretched on, unbroken.

"Tsk."

Then nothingness.

Only steady footsteps moving away, and the dungeon door closing with a thud.

OOO

The three twelve-year-old girls, stretched out to dry on the beach of white polished pebbles a few yards away from the wooden house that always smelled clean, had just surfaced from a long swim in the lake.

Caroline had pulled away from both her companions on the return trip. She could swim at an impressive speed, moving sinuously through the water, almost like a mermaid with the features of a human being. All Lavinia and Mizuki could do was trudge behind her at their own pace. Since that trip to the temple, they shared a motto - a little bit joking and a little bit sincere - to which they paid heed at every opportunity: the two of them were made to go slow, and wait for each other.

It had been a long time since that distant day. Three years. And many things had happened in the meantime.

Mizuki's mother passed away when she was still ten years old.

She died as she had lived: softly, and with a smile that instilled optimism and hope for the future. She died with the knowledge and the relief that Mizuki - her favorite daughter, the unspoken secret of all parents - had stopped acting just for her, and although she laughed less often, she did so genuinely and, above all, in every moment of her day.

They graduated from the Academy, becoming full-fledged ninjas, and were assigned to three different teams.

Mizuki often babbled about a certain story that she claimed embodied the essence of being a ninja. Caroline and Lavinia listened to her without commenting: although they knew what the origin of that story was and were familiar with all its implications, their being foreigners allowed them both to approach the subject with detachment and superiority, as if it were really a fairy tale told to children to scare them.

Their family had not experienced firsthand the madness of the years in which that story was set, nor its consequences.

They also knew perfectly well that she spoke of it so often to them precisely because she had no one else with whom to do so: in her own home she could forget to mention the subject without provoking her father's wrath; as for the other inhabitants of the Village ... as a rule, they pretended that such a page in their history had never existed and scoffed at any slightest reference that might bring it back to their memory. But several still had not forgotten; and when they crossed paths with Mizuki or her sisters they still moved across the street.

Although she never complained, Caroline and Lavinia had noticed the half-moon-shaped scars camping red on the palms of her friend's hands; and they knew that the main reason behind her decision to become a ninja, against her parents' advice, lay in that very tale and its aftermath, and in her desire to purge the family name of that indelible stain.

To be able, one day, to identify himself head-on with that name without receiving distrust and hatred in response.

"Mom will be here soon with a snack." Caroline yawned as she lazily braided half of her long black hair into a lopsided braid.

"Your mother's cookies are a divine fruit." Mizuki stretched her arms and rolled onto her stomach. Centered between the two sisters, she only needed to stretch out an arm to complete Caroline's work: she took the strands of hair still scattered on the cloth around her head, and began braiding them.

Lavinia closed her eyes, and turned her head to the opposite side, as if even her tightened eyelids could not prevent her from witnessing that unwelcome scene.

"Lav, it's your turn next."

Those simple words were enough to restore the little girl's good mood.

"Yes, but finish mine first!" demanded Caroline. This time it was she who squinted her eyes.

It was an already tried-and-true dynamic that Mizuki knew well. Those two identical sisters would fight over her like a rag doll when one of them felt neglected: Lavinia, closing in on herself; Caroline, parting her lips with her Thousand and One Nights princess manner; and Mizuki juggling between them, amused. It was enough for her that they could always stay together as at that moment, and nothing else, spending their days off swimming in the lake, braiding each other's hair and eating Mrs. Williams' delicacies. A Mizuki in the midst of two little black-haired girls, identical and different in everything at the same time.

In those moments, she felt a sensation that had not warmed her chest in a long time.

"Ah," Caroline sighed. "I'm meeting with Yato tonight. We will take a walk here by the lake. Do you think I should kiss him?"

"Dunno, Carol. Ew," Lavinia sentenced, fanning her face with one hand.

"I don't care about these things, you know. So I don't really have an opinion about it. However, I think if you like him you should do it," replied Mizuki, unexpectedly serious, considering the topic and her character.

"Don't you care about them? What about Rei?" teased Caroline, turning on her side to look at her.

"What about Rei? I can tell you that his armpits stink to high heaven after we do push-ups."

"Ew! But you're not fooling me!" Caroline burst out laughing, looking as if she had every intention of pursuing the topic further; but, noticing the annoyance in her sister's eyes at the topic of Rei, she went back to talking about herself. "I don't like Yato anyway. I only date him to make Yuki jealous."

Mizuki, who knowing her friend had expected such an answer and had gone along with her talk only to hear her admit the double game she was engaged in, shook her head, laughing in turn. "You are the same as always, Carol."

From the doorway of the house appeared Mrs. Williams. That one looked like the lost third twin of Caroline and Lavinia, such was the resemblance to her daughters. And she, too, discreetly and unobtrusively participated in the sisters' game to grab Mizuki's heart. "Girls, the cookies are ready! Mizuki, they are your favorite!"

This time Mizuki did not hold true to the motto she shared with Lavinia, and she rushed toward the house, dislodging without restraint the two sisters who, with joyous laughter, tried to catch her up. But she ran swiftly, lightly, her chest swollen with the feeling she had not felt in a long time and which put wings on her feet.

Complete.

Yes, with those two identical sisters by her side, she felt complete.

OOO

Against all odds, it turned out to be a week of relative peace and rest for Mizuki, and hell on earth for Levi.

The girl, in fact, spent most of her time sleeping and devouring the books Hanje brought her on the first day of captivity as thanks for the tip about the abnormal. The team leader obtained permission to enter the cell to help Mizuki write the report on the scouting - since Finnian was dead, it was up to her, the only survivor, to report what happened during the two-day mission. Hanje explained how the report was to be drafted and what kind of information was to be included in it; when they reached the section devoted to the giant killings, she added that each was to be categorized as "in single" or "in group" so that superiors could monitor the soldiers' capabilities, and what criteria were to be applied for the purpose of distinction.

"So, let's see if you understand. Those two you shot down before the abnormal, how do you consider them?"

"I don't know. Should the fact that I was able to take them down easily because they were devouring my team make it a group kill?"

Hanje squinted her eyes in surprise. Mizuki bit her lip. She could usually contain herself, but the night's sleep had not yet made her regain all her lost energy, and she felt tired and irritable like she had not felt for a long time. "I'm sorry, Hanje. Really, I don't know what has gotten into me."

But the woman merely shook her head, leaned in her direction, and hugged her awkwardly and stiffly; then she broke away from her and noted on the paper, "Mizuki Onizuka, two giants, in singles."

Hanje obviously took advantage of her visit to the dungeon to subject Mizuki to a full-fledged headless interrogation about the abnormal, starting with the most interesting information - "I've never seen a giant with one leg shorter than the other! Tell me EVERYTHING!" but there was actually very little to tell; and going so far as to ask her absurd details such as how many hairs she had discerned under the sole of the giant's foot. It was with immense relief and gratitude that, after three hours, Mizuki welcomed the arrival of Moblit, who dragged Hanje out of the dungeon despite her cries of protest.

Otherwise, military regulations stated that detainees were allowed a daily quarter-hour visit; but circumstances forced the commander to allow Dr. Michaelson to stay or visit Mizuki even outside canonical hours to gather her opinion on how to treat certain particularly delicate wounds. On a couple of occasions, and albeit reluctantly, he even authorized the descent of two patients to the dungeon.

Petra came down every day to see her, bringing with her a distraught Theo, who seemed unable to come to terms with the fact that he could not throw himself into the arms of his beloved.

Lavinia, like Levi, did not show up.

Despite the bustle of people certainly abnormal for a prison, which elicited some complaints from the guards, Mizuki spent a lot of time alone and, for a good part of the detention, absorbed herself in memories and her own thoughts.

She reflected on the scouting, on her comrades, on Lavinia, and on...

As much as she tried not to think about it, her mind raced more often than she would like to to the conversation she had with the captain; and every time, invariably, she ended up calling herself stupid. Hadn't she just vowed to be careful about what she would tell him?

And then, at the first opportunity...

That very story, did she have to end up blurting out?

The genial self of that evening, idiotic as she was, had at least shown the good sense to omit the insignificant detail that the protagonists of the tale were none other than her uncle and father; a consolation, however meager. What would the captain have thought otherwise? She was already certain that passing that story off to him as a children's fairy tale had definitely convinced him that she was coming from a cage of lunatics.

And then...

Curled up on the bed, Mizuki brushed her fingertips over the back of her head and lay still, thrilled and frightened by a flood of emotions she could not quite put into frame.

Upstairs, the complications, for the captain, began the evening after returning to HQ. He found himself, late at night, in Erwin's office to discuss with him his meeting, set for the next morning, with Commandant Zackly and the army higher-ups in Mitras.

"This time they will have little to complain about. A scouting party with only twenty-one dead hadn't happened for a long time. Most of them, moreover, were cadets. Besides, we did what we had to do, getting the equipment to the post without incident." Erwin spoke without taking his eyes off the papers full of numbers he held in his hands.

"Yeah. We were damn lucky," Levi observed laconically, as always sitting in a nonchalant position on the small sofa.

"With this, I'd say we're done." Erwin straightened his back and leaned it against the back of the chair, then pointed his weary-veined eyes at his captain.

"You really look like shit. Go to bed, in less than three hours you have to hit the road."

"That's what I plan to do. First, though, I'd like to hear your opinion on a matter..."

"If you are going to ask me what I think about the logs the brat is talking about, save your breath." Levi brought the cup to his lips and swallowed the last sip of tea. "She's got a screw loose, I don't know if you noticed."

"I wasn't going to ask you that specifically, but I'll take your opinion into account. No, the matter concerns something else. Maybe it's too early to talk about it, but I'm thinking of assigning Mizuki to your team when she's served her punishment. What do you think?" Erwin did not take his eyes off his captain's face, studying him carefully, just as he had done with Mizuki the night before.

This unnerved him. He had never gotten used to the psychological bullshit games that so delighted the commander. And what answers was he looking for, anyway? What did he think he was going to see in his face? To escape Erwin's inquisitive gaze, he got up and walked over to the bookcase overflowing with books, without answering. He picked one up and leafed through it without reading a single one of the words written in it. "It depends," he scanned, after letting a minute of silence pass.

"On what?"

"On whether or not you want the brat to croak."

Erwin did not comment, and waited for him to furhter explain.

"My squad deals with difficult situations, and each of us puts his life on the line all the time, much more than the other soldiers. You saw how it went with the abnormal. And the brat is stupid enough to fuck things up even to save me."

That possibility - a barely seventeen-year-old recruit set out to protect humanity's strongest soldier - drew a smile from the commander. "Are you telling me you don't want her on your team?"

"I am telling you to do as you like, but to keep in mind that she's a fool. I don't care, but you want her to survive, right?" Levi closed the book with a dry gesture, and finally turned to Erwin.

The commander's eyes shone coldly and impassively in the dim light of the lamp hanging on the wall. "Yes, I admit I wouldn't mind if she stopped trying to commit suicide on every scouting trip. You know, I think her presence might come in handy for the cause, if one day..."

"No need to justify yourself," Levi interrupted him sharply.

"Well, in any case, I'm working on smoothing out this aspect of her character..."

"You can work on it all you want, but it's all useless." Levi advanced to stand in front of Erwin's desk. "That one will never be a soldier."

"Well, some people thought the same thing about you."

Levi's fingers twitched. It did not often happen that Erwin - or anyone else, for that matter - referred to the way he had joined the Corps, and he was fine with that.

Erwin sighed, looking genuinely sorry for the rejection. "I understand, I will think of another solution. It's too bad, because I think she could have learned a lot, from you."

"Put her with Mike. I have no idea how that's possible, but he likes the brat, and they get along quite well."

"Ah, yes... He says she smells good. But that's not possible. Mike will probably serve me for something else."

Levi wrinkled his eyebrows. He had guessed that Erwin was up to something to bait the brat - as always, his brain was constantly thinking and strategizing, with such foresight that it would be futile to try to imagine what his goal was and, before that, how he intended to pursue it; but what could Mike possibly have to do with such a plan?

More importantly, would it have been enough? Whatever strategy it was, would it really have been enough to overcome the guilt and the sense of duty that lurked in those golden eyes? Would it really have been enough to keep that natural talent of hers for getting killed at bay?

"If you care so much, I can train her to use the device though."

Until Erwin lifted his head sharply, staring at him in surprise, the captain could not come to terms with the fact that, indeed, it was his thin, pale lips that had articulated that offer.

"Are you being serious, Levi?"

Before he could answer, a deafening clamor arose from the end of the corridor overlooked by the commander's office, similar to that caused by the complaints and insults that citizens addressed to the Corps upon its return from each expedition. The noise gradually increased in intensity until it erupted in front of the door of the room. Someone knocked sharply and, without waiting for an invitation, pushed the door wide open. Nanaba entered the room in her pajamas, quickly followed by a host of other female soldiers in robes. "Commander!" thundered Mike's second-in-command. " Just do something!"

"What the heck...?" began Levi, but his exclamation was interrupted by an agonizing scream.

Nanaba pushed Theo toward the center of the room. The child's face was flooded with tears, and disconnected moans rose from his mouth. "He's been like this since last night. It hasn't let us sleep a wink, and tonight he started again. During the day it's not that bad, but at night he looks possessed. Without Mizuki he doesn't sleep, and he can't even stay in a dimly lit place, the dark terrifies him. We want to sleep, we have just returned from a scouting trip! Send him to the dungeon, or get Mizuki out. I don't care how, but do something!"

It did not often happen that the commander was taken aback by some event. Erwin Smith was a strategist, a man of vision and brilliance, who had based his life on prevention and planning. Yet even he could never have predicted such a turn of events. "I can't do that, Nanaba," he seemed to force himself to say. "Mizuki is serving a sentence for disobeying an order."

"Then you keep him. You're awake anyway, aren't you?" Nanaba pushed Theo towards the center of the room, and then stepped backward, approaching the door.

"Well..." Erwin let his gaze wander over the angry yet fatigue-ravaged female faces peeking out of the doorway. "All right."

Levi squinted his eyes. That damned brat. She could cause trouble even if she was locked underground.

And the worst, for him, was yet to come.

After the troop of female soldiers had withdrawn, triumphant and sleepy, Erwin pulled himself to his feet. Both men stared back at Theo, who stood in the center of the room and, reassured by the light and warm surroundings, had stopped crying; but, at the same time, his watchful and not at all tired little eyes were turning around the room, as if searching for something. Or, rather, someone. And he did not seem at all willing to put himself to rest before he had found it.
A glance passed between Erwin and Levi and, to their dismay, each realized that the elite soldier in front of him had neither the slightest intention, nor the necessary knowledge, to take care of a brat.

"I'm taking him to the dungeon."

"He's a child, Levi. We can't let him stay there."

"So what the fuck are we going to do?"

Erwin cleared his throat. "Well, like you said before, I have to leave in a few hours. You don't sleep much, do you? So if you don't mind..."

Levi's eyes narrowed into two slits. "If this is an order, you better make it clear."

Two minutes later, Levi furiously opened the door of his own room. He had walked down the dark corridor of the officers' floor in wide strides, as fast as he could, for he feared that the darkness would again provoke that inconsolable weeping that was getting on his nerves, but the brat kept silent without producing the slightest sound, dangling at his side. The captain carried him by holding him up with one arm, and pressing him against his hip as if he were a sack of potatoes, with his arms and legs swinging.

When he set him down on the ground, the child immediately ran to one of the chairs placed in front of the desk and hoisted himself onto it. Then he turned to look at him, like a small dog eagerly awaiting an order from its master. At least, Levi thought as he closed the door behind him, the brat had trained him properly.

The thought of Mizuki made blood boil in his veins. He promised himself, for the umpteenth time, that he would really make her pay for this one.

The child and the soldier peered at each other in silence from one end of the room to the other; the former with curiosity and innocence, the latter with ill-concealed distrust.

Yet, coming to his aid was Mizuki herself. Digging into his memory, he recalled how she, a few weeks earlier, had smashed the balls of the entire corps because, convinced by a vaguely dog-like doodle that her protégé was endowed with immeasurable artistic genius, she had made it her mission to show the masterpiece to each one of them, losing herself in rants about how much Theo loved to draw.

With a sigh of relief at having a vague idea of how to approach the situation, Levi picked up from his desk a few blank sheets of paper and a pencil, and placed them in front of the child. The latter studied them for a few moments, cast an impassive glance at Levi and then, having resolutely retrieved the pencil, turned back to the shelf. The captain positioned himself on the opposite side of the desk, getting ready to work himself.

Theo collapsed about an hour later, not before he had soiled most of the papers and worn out half the pencil. When he noticed it, Levi carried him - as gently as he could - to the bed he never used, because, as little as he knew about brats, even someone like him knew that it was preferable to have them snoring under the covers. Not to mention that Mizuki would have ruptured his eardrums with complaints if she had found out that the captain had made her beloved pupil sleep in a chair.

After accomplishing that task, Levi set about tidying up his desk by throwing into the trash the horrors birthed by Theo's "artistic genius." He was about to get rid of the last one as well, but a doodle detail blocked his gesture; Levi lifted the paper slightly, and contemplated it.

It portrayed two stylized figures, one larger than the other, holding hands, with two huge, somewhat grotesque smiles cutting across their oval faces. The tangle that surrounded the head of one of the two figures left little room for imagination as to its identity; and to guess the other did not need much more.

Damned brat, he repeated inwardly.

He then folded the paper in half, and finished rearranging the desk.

OOO

On the morning of the seventh day, around seven o'clock, Levi had just awakened Theo, who was resting tangled in the covers of his bed, when Hanje knocked on the door causing an absurd racket.

"'She's out!" she exclaimed, excitedly, when the captain cursedly opened the door. "Erwin wants us..."

She didn't manage to complete the sentence, that Levi had already grabbed Theo, settling him dangling him by his side, and set off at a fast pace down the corridor towards Erwin's office, with Hanje trudging behind him in spite of her longer legs.

The captain threw open the door without knocking. Mizuki, in uniform, stood in front of the commander's desk, in the same spot where, a week earlier, she had received her punishment. Her face shone pale and slightly emaciated in the early daylight, the only clue to her prolonged stay in the dungeon. Otherwise, she looked exactly the same as always.

As soon as Theo saw her, he began to wiggle his body and legs, spasmodically stretching his arms in her direction.

"Oi, you brat. Come and take back what's yours."

Mizuki's face lit up, and she bent on her knees, opening her arms. "Theo! How I have missed you!"

Levi laid his prisoner on the ground, and he rushed into the arms of his beloved.

"I was just explaining to Mizuki how you watched over Theo every night in her absence..." Erwin watched an obviously irritated Levi brush a lock of hair away from his face.

"Fuck you, Erwin."

"Captain, thank you so much for taking care of him!" murmured Mizuki, in an excited voice. "I keep saying it that you're such a tough bark and tender interior. Even though you were holding him in a really abominable way!"

Before the two of them could get into an argument, Erwin cleared his throat. "Well, now that all parties are present, let me inform you of my decision regarding your assignment, Mizuki. You are officially assigned to Hanje's team."

The woman took a leap, throwing a fist towards the sky. "Yuppy! Just what I was hoping for! Mizuki, aren't you happy?! With you on the team we'll definitely be able to catch a new little guy..."

The concerned party, who had pulled herself to her feet by holding a hand on Theo's little head did not seem to share Hanje's enthusiasm at all. "Ah, yes..."

"Relax, no one is going to catch giants as long as I am commander. When Hanje is busy with her research, your primary task will remain running the infirmary. As for training in the use of the device, Levi will take care of you from now on."

The news was greeted with even less brio by Mizuki, whose gaze darkened further.

With all evidence, she had enough head and imagination to picture the retaliation she and her poor ears would suffer for the intemperance of the first few months. "Wonderful," she muttered indeed.

"Don't worry, there is some good news for you, too: I have decided to grant the request you made before the scouting." Erwin's lips were stretched into a smile, but his eyes - focused on his interlocutor - glowed cold and calculating. "On one condition, though."

The brat lifted her head sharply, and an electrified, genuine smile lit her up. "Really?!"

"Yes. I will arrange for your comrades to be transferred to the Garrison Corps. But that's only on the condition that you commit, from now on, to stop fooling around and to follow orders, especially when we're out of the walls. Do I make myself clear?"

So that was it, what the commander had in mind. The plan to subdue that hot-blooded, ill-tempered brat, and that she herself had provided him with on a silver platter.

About her, they had little but significant information, and Erwin had used it all to his advantage. That she would keep her word. That she would give her life to protect her comrades. And that she generally did not follow inconvenient orders.

Levi came to wonder how much of what had happened outside the walls had been foreseen. Of course, even Erwin could not have predicted that Willy would be stuck under a wagon at the very moment an abnormal had broken into the formation; nor that the entire Finnian squad would be wiped out. But he certainly knew that a lot could go wrong in the course of a scouting trip, and that there was a good chance that Mizuki would be forced to collide - again - with the devastation created by the giants, and end up doing something stupid.

Levi watched her petite figure in silence: her free hand was shot through with imperceptible spasms, her shoulders tense and stiff, her head slightly bent forward. Even without being able to see her face, he sensed the battle raging within her.

Now she could also explain Erwin's rant about the order of importance of lives.

What would she choose? To put that of her comrades first, and decide to follow orders, going against her own nature, or to keep true to herself, taking the risk of losing her friends, in order to save unknown soldiers at the cost of her own life?

Which one will you choose, brat? Either option is fine with me, as long as you hurry up.

Mizuki's hand twitched.

"Commander. I think, before we go any further, we need to make one point clear. I... I cannot offer my heart for the cause."

"Well, that's not what I demand of you, but..." Erwin bent his torso forward, and intertwined his hands, laying them on the desk. "Is there any particular reason that prevents you from doing so?"

"Yes, the thing is ... that I've already made a commitment, you see. And I can't disregard it. But ... however, I think I can follow orders," slowly scanned the brat, as if she were pronouncing her death sentence. "Yes, I will."

"Great." Erwin gave no show of the slightest surprise. "We have a deal, then."

"If you don't mind, I'll take care of communicating to my comrades their relocation..."

"Oh, no need. I've already informed them."

The commander spoke in a completely casual tone, as if he was merely giving her directions on the planned breakfast menu. But those two sentences were enough to make Mizuki flinch. Levi sensed agitation, mixed with a sense of anger, exhaling from that petite body and stinking up the room like the stench of a piece of meat left in the sun for too long.

The brat turned suddenly and, moving away from Theo, stared at Levi. "Captain, I entrust Theo to you!"

"What? Oi, stop..."

But she was too quick, and he too slow, in reacting, not expecting in the least that events would take such a turn: without being dismissed by any of the superiors present, she gained the door and soon disappeared from their sight. Erwin, however, did not seem in the least upset or resentful of the inappropriateness of such conduct; on the contrary, Mizuki's reaction kindled a gleam of smugness and triumph in his eyes, the same that animated him when some daring, strategic experiment outside the walls was successful.

Levi needed no more, to understand. He had not yet finished with her. The commander's coils had just begun to wrap around that neck that, only a few nights earlier, he had accidentally touched.

Against his better judgment, Levi found himself lifting Theo and setting off after the brat.

OOO

Mizuki found them in the square in front of the building's exit that overlooked the garden.

She paused panting on the threshold to study them from a distance; everything about them - the posture, the hand and head gestures, the aura around them - clearly signaled that they were seething with anger and disdain. And all this even before they saw the probable source of their bad mood.

She descended the steps, trying not to make a sound.

"Look who's here," hissed Loki in an angry tone. Amado immediately turned in her direction; he, rather than angry, appeared deeply hurt by the twist the situation had taken. Lavinia, on the other hand, kept her back to her adamantly.

Mizuki cursed Commander Erwin Smith again.

How could he blurt out in no half-hearted manner to her comrades the request she had made of him?

If only she would have been the one to inform them of their relocation... she would have blamed the commander, the system, the captain, the taxpayers. All she had to do was give them any reason, as long as it was different from the truth, and perhaps she would have been able to make them accept the decision, somehow. But this way...

She raised her hands, in the vain hope that the gesture, together with her words, would pacify them. "Guys, let's try to reason..."

"There's not much to reason about, Mizuki. It's pretty clear what you had set out to do. Some grand plan of sacrifice to make us safe. And all this, as usual, without questioning the people involved." Loki moved a threatening step in her direction.

"I... I'm just trying to keep the promise I made to you, as captain!"

"By cutting us off?" Amado shook his head. "Do you really think this is the solution?"

"I don't think anything, Amado. I just know that what's out there... it's scary." Mizuki had never felt so incapable of expressing the feelings that set her chest on fire as in that moment. The three of them were standing right there. Yet she had also had them by her own side during the scouting on more than one occasion and had watched helplessly as her three comrades were devoured alive. How could she explain to them such madness, when she herself could not fully comprehend it either? "I don't want you…"

"Do you think we don't know?! We've been out there with you too, damn it!"

Mizuki noticed the group of soldiers in the center of the meadow, engaged in the morning care of the horses, turn their eyes in their direction "Loki, keep your voice down! They might hear you..."

"I don't give a shit, Mizuki! Let them listen if they care so much! I'm sick and tired of your attitude. We're a team, have you forgotten that?! When we accepted the mission and the risks involved, we did it all together!"

"Do you trust us so little?" Amado, more reasonable and less sanguine than Loki, laid a hand on his comrade's shoulder. "We are also ... like you. We certainly do not possess the same abilities as you, but we are exactly like you. And we want to go home alive together, just as you."

How could she have explained it? Sure, they had also seen the giants devouring their comrades. Sure. But on that occasion none of them had any idea how to defeat them. She thought back to Finnian, who had trained her for two months and had served in the Corps for four long years. He knew how to take down those monsters, and he was much faster and more skilled in using the device than she was. Yet, out there, he had been a moment too late in his last battle, or he had been unlucky, or both. And so, a giant had devoured the underside of his body.

Her heart hardened, and she forced her own voice and gaze to do the same. "This is not a joke. My decision is made, and as far as I can tell, the leader here is still me. You will join the Garrison Corps."

"You know what, Mizuki? Fuck you."

"I see that talking to you pays off as usual." Now even in Amado's voice there was a trace of barely suppressed anger. "If you don't trust us, I have no intention of taking orders from you any longer."

"So that's the way it is?" Mizuki shifted her gaze from one to the other. Then, in a slow, measured gesture, she took off her uniform jacket. "Fine. If you do not intend to obey nicely, I will force you to do so by beating you until the concept has entered your head." Having said that, she pointed with her head to the center of the garden. "Let's go. If you can land me, you will stay; if not, say goodbye to the Wings of Liberty. Bring it on, if you dare. You two against me."

"No, you're wrong." Lavinia, still with her back turned, slipped off her jacket in turn and let it fall to the ground. "The three of us against you."

Then, without looking back, she began walking towards the center of the garden.

OOO

The commotion coming from outside forced Levi to leave the canteen - the first place where he had started his search for the fugitive brat - and reach the exit that overlooked the back garden.

His passage drew the attention of the soldiers, who seemed unable to make up their minds if what their eyes were seeing was a mirage, or if indeed humanity's strongest soldier was wandering around HQ carrying a child as if he were a sack of potatoes.

After casting an annoyed glance at two recruits who pointed at him in amazement in the hallway, he stepped out into the open air and, from the top of the short staircase that connected the door to the ground, studied the situation.

All around the two fighters a semicircle of loud people had formed.

He descended the stairs and his gaze fell on Amado and Loki, both slumped on the last of the steps, covered with dust. The former was holding his stomach, groaning, his face drenched in sweat; the latter, on the other hand, was observing the scene with only one eye, and kept the other - swollen and bruised - closed. The two boys noticed the captain's coming and greeted him with a nod.

"What the heck is going on here?"

Loki shrugged his shoulders. "Ah, nothing much. Just some disagreements in the chain of command. We didn't want to listen to Mizuki, so she tried to force us to obey. It's not like the idea of clashing with her was so much to my liking; I knew I'd get beaten badly, but I couldn't back down. I have my pride, too. Well, as was obvious Amado and I ended up on the ground sooner rather than later. But at least I managed to hit that moron once, and that was enough to make me happy."

"Loki and I had no hope against her. If there is anyone among us who can beat her, it's only Lavinia."

Levi furrowed his brow. He had once happened to pass by the garden in the course of hand-to-hand training, and from the little he had glimpsed, it did not seem to him that Williams was endowed with who knows what fighting skills.

Amado seemed to read his mind. "Mizuki would never hurt her. Well, except by endangering herself." With a nod, she invited him to follow the ongoing fight. "If you don't believe me, judge for yourself."

Indeed, the brat was playing on defense, merely dodging her opponent's convulsive and chaotic attacks. Having fought her before, he knew she was holding back: if only she had wanted to, she could have finished the fight without difficulty. Lavinia, in her eagerness, had already given her three perfect openings to counterattack successfully, but Mizuki didn't take advantage of any of them.

He could catch a glimpse of them. Perhaps his mind was finally succumbing to madness, but Levi was sure he could see Erwin's tentacles climbing up her legs in an attempt to subdue her. She was struggling, struggling as he himself had once done. Like him, she would realize all too soon that opposing the man was a useless waste of time; if he wanted something, he would not stop until he got it.

Without needing to turn around, he felt the commander's presence behind him.

Now Erwin Smith wanted her.

OOO

Mizuki's plan was simple: excluded, without even seriously considering it, to lay hands on Lavinia, she aimed to get her by exhaustion, and sooner or later she would succeed. She kept dodging Lavinia's lunges, which had always been too slow, and too predictable, because her uncertainty in her own fighting skills led her to repeat the same patterns without any significant variation.

After Mizuki had landed Loki and Amado, the main physical threats, Lavinia, who seemed to have been looking forward to that moment, threw herself at her. She did not speak, but merely fought with gritted teeth and fury.

"Lav, let's stop this. This is so stupid it's ridiculous!"

"Shut up!" Another poorly delivered punch, another prompt dodge. Lavinia gasped, but showed no sign of wanting to give up. "We'll stop when I put you back in your place!"

Mizuki sighed. She only hoped that no superior would intervene to split them up in that parody of a fight because she meant to settle the matter there, once and for all, without dragging it out unnecessarily. She missed her friend. Talking to her, laughing with her, just looking at her. To return back to normal, she had to force her to think, make her understand that transferring to the Garrison Corps was the ideal solution in every respect, the safest, the most...

"You are a liar, Mizuki!"

Those words hurt her. She did not hold a high opinion of herself, but if there was anything she made a point of pride of, well that was precisely her rigidity and fidelity in fulfilling the commitments she had taken on. "What?"

"You promised!" Lavinia took a step away, in a vain attempt to ferret out an opening in the other's defense. "That day, you promised me. And so did I, and you accepted my commitment! And now ... now you're pushing me away?"

"I am not..."

"You are! You're going to stay here, and you're going to have that man put a collar on you!"

"That will never happen." Mizuki shook her head, as if to chase away a fly buzzing around her, forcing herself to stay focused, and not to give in to those obvious attempts to confuse her.

"It has already happened, however! You're ready to offer your heart!"

"No! You know that I can't do that!"

Why the heck was she getting so heated? Yet, it was glaringly obvious how that sham was nothing more than a ploy to get her to lower her guard, and then attack her.

And yet...

Lavinia dropped her arms, abandoning her fighting stance. She did not cry, but peered at her with a lost, helpless, and pleading gaze.

Exactly like that distant day.

"'You're going to leave me alone, Mizuki...'"

No, she had to hold on. To remind herself why she was doing this. So that she would not have to contemplate again the spectacle of a head topped with shiny black hair being swallowed by the jaws of a giant, with the knowledge that, this time, it would really be Lavinia.

"You saved me that day. You saved me."

And now you must take responsibility for it, were the words that Lavinia did not utter, but hovered silently between them. Mizuki squinted her eyes.

"We promised. Until the day I die..."

OOO

Mizuki ran into the woods along the path that bordered the lake, a place she now knew like the back of her hand. Her heart was pounding in her temples; she took long breaths, yet the air was not enough to oxygenate her mind; she felt her head muffled, the same feeling she used to get when - in the course of their outings to the lake - she would dive deep and gaze at the sky through the veil of water that surrounded her.

That bright summer night was lazily drawing to a close, giving way to the first rays of the sun.

She had returned just two hours earlier. Confused, alone, terrified, with a terrible load on her shoulders, she had managed to drag herself to the gates that guarded the entrance to the Village. As soon as they had seen her, the guards leapt to their feet; after forcibly separating her from her load, they put a blanket over her shoulders and offered her a cup of coffee. There followed questions, remarks, explanations, and several superiors who demanded, each one, to hear what she had just told ten more times. After a time that seemed endless, they told her to go home, since she seemed unharmed, and to show up the next day to give an official statement to the Hokage.

She was just fourteen years old and, before that night, had always felt older and more mature than her age. Yet, in reality, she was still a child, powerless and unable to fight against events; never before had she wished that she was not just fourteen, but fifteen, because, had she been more of an adult, perhaps she would have understood what had just happened. Perhaps she would have been able to explain how such a trivial order, which she had carried out as she had done with all previous ones, had resulted in such terrible consequences. Perhaps she would be able to answer that question that had been asked of her.

She wished to grow up, to grow up as fast as possible. She did not want to be fourteen, but fifteen; and then, when she reached that age, she would strive with all her energy to get to sixteen as soon as possible. She wanted to grow up fast, to become an adult and learn to cope with reality.

Mizuki did not return home. She needed someone who could listen and understand her at a glance in that moment, and she knew she would not find that person at home. Her mother had been dead for four years, and as much as she loved the remaining members of her family, she knew they could not understand her. Her sisters had decided to take a different path from her own; as for her father... after all he had done, she could not seriously consider him as the ideal confidant.

So she ran toward the house in the woods, although it was not yet dawn. But that person would not have cared.

She reached the clearing that housed the house in the woods and, for a moment, thought she was falling prey to a hallucination due to low oxygenation of the brain. She rubbed her eyes and hit her head, but the flames that devoured the house from the foundation, brightly illuminating the surrounding area, did not disappear.

The world came crashing down on her. She had just lost Terence and Rei, and now she was about to lose her as well .

This was an unbearable, unacceptable thought.

She hastily took off her shirt, tore it in half and then tied a flap over her mouth, ran to the shores of the lake a few meters away and hurriedly dived in.

She retrieved a stone from the ground and looked for a way in. She broke the kitchen window - the one framed by the curtains that Mrs. Williams liked so much: thick black smoke escaped from the hole, and she slipped inside. She thought she had removed all the glass from below, but nevertheless a splinter opened a deep gash in her calf.

With her eyes burning from the smoke she began to wander around the house. After a while, however, she decided to squint her eyelids and grope her way forward, so familiar was she with the layout of rooms and objects. She searched the kitchen and the foyer, then headed for the living room. Everything was enveloped in flames, destroying those places so dear to her and filled with memories. She wondered how this could have happened.

Was it the flames of her mission that had spread all the way there? Was it her punishment?

She found them on the living room carpet, under the table. She had expected them to be there. She knew that on warm summer nights their attic room gave off heat like a furnace, so they went downstairs to enjoy the lake breeze. Caroline was curled up on herself, unconscious; next to her was an identical little girl holding her burned calf. Lavinia looked up at Mizuki. Her wide eyes grew even wider. She tried to speak, but as soon as she opened her mouth she began to cough violently. Mizuki shook her head and handed her one of the wet cloths.

Lavinia thanked her with her eyes. Then she pointed with her head at her twin sister.

Mizuki understood what she was asking of her, and understood that she was doing it for her, inviting her to save the one for whom she had thrown herself into a burning house.

Mizuki shook her head again, then loaded her onto her shoulders. She felt her body stiffening. She thought she would resist, but she did not. She walked the way she had come and, once in the kitchen, helped the little girl onto the kitchen counter and slide out the window. She followed her and, as soon as they touched the ground, grabbed her by the shoulders and dragged her away from the burning house. Both were covered in soot and coughing, their eyes filled with tears.

After bringing the injured to a safe distance, Mizuki prepared to return to the house, when with a bone-chilling noise the ceiling of the second floor gave way and plummeted to the rooms below. The windows exploded, scattering a shower of shrapnel into the lawn around, and flames rose high into the sky.

Mizuki stared at that spectacle as if paralyzed.

"Caroline..."

She lowered her gaze. Lavinia was not looking at the house, but at her. She was trembling.

"She was alive..."

"I know." Mizuki let herself fall beside Lavinia. "I know. I'm sorry. I wish I could have saved her."

"Why? Why me and not her?"

"What?" She turned back in her direction.

"You were there for her."

"No." That word rose spontaneously to her lips, and despite trying to sound as neutral as possible, she could not hide her surprise and made the answer sound as if it were a truism. "Of course not."

Lavinia grabbed her by the shoulders, planting her fingers firmly in her flesh. She looked spirited, and wary. She could not believe the words she had just heard.

Mizuki knew why, but at that moment the situation still exasperated her. Could it be that she had never understood...?

"That day, at the lake. It was you, who made me smile. Not Caroline. It was you who gave me strength."

Yes, it had been her. Her and the warmth of her hand, her and her understanding, her and her acceptance.

Caroline had always been a side effect of that moment.

The eternal second - in her mother's affection, in friendships, at the Academy - could not believe she had been chosen and preferred over her sister by someone so important to both of them. Their best friend, the third element in what until they were nine years old had always been a duo. A bit of the secret first love of both of them.

When faced with a drastic decision, Mizuki had chosen her.

Lavinia took a deep breath, which reminded Mizuki of when they all three surfaced at the same time from the waters of the lake, after daring each other to stay below the surface of the water for as long as possible.

"I'm really sorry, Lav."

Her friend nodded. Although she had hated and loved her at the same time, Caroline was dead. A part of her died along with her twin that night, crushed by the ceiling of the house that had been their shelter. A dark part - composed of resentment and envy; and the best part of her - the sense of belonging, complicity, sharing. Of all that, of the memories and the life they had shared, all that remained was the girl slumped by her side.

Mizuki appeared small and bewildered, looking like a puppy abandoned in the rain.

She immediately guessed that something must have happened to her, on a mission, if she was there at that time in the morning. She kept her head bowed, her eyes focused on Lavinia's burned leg. "If only I knew what to do ... if only I knew what to do ... maybe Rei ... maybe him ..." she murmured in a feeble voice.

One of Lavinia's hands, planted on her friend's shoulders, descended down her arm and found Mizuki's fingers, as it had on a day years away from that moment on the shores of the sunlit lake. She held it between her own, entwined their fingers together. Lavinia sought her friend's gaze, to offer her a still point, and decided in that instant that she would never leave her again.

Mizuki returned the gaze, lost as she had ever seen her.

Beside them, the flames continued their work of destruction.

"Until the day I die, my heart is yours," Lavinia slowly chanted, before wrapping her in an awkward embrace.

She feared she had gone too far, and that Mizuki would reject her with revulsion. Her mother and twin sister had just died, and perhaps she, Lavinia, had survived by a mere mistake. But she heard a sigh escape from the lips of the trembling girl in her arms, and then her voice, in a choked groan, whisper in her ear, "Until the day I die, my heart is yours."

OOO

The culprits of the arson set at the Williams family house had never been found, and Mizuki, in front of herself, remained the sole responsible party for the tragedy that unfolded on that summer night.

"... My heart is yours. It will be yours forever."

Yes. Her guilt-filled heart would forever belong to Lavinia. After letting Caroline die, after forcing her to survive all alone, promising never to abandon her, no matter what happened, felt like the least that could be expected of her.

Yes, always with Lavinia, she and Lavinia forever together. A blessing, and at the same time a curse with no possibility of escape; except, perhaps, oblivion. Only the captain's words had forced her to face reality, and to put into her memoirs that episode she would have liked to forget, to free herself from the promise that bound her to her friend.

But she could not escape her. She had given her word.

She had chosen that day to save her and bring her back to a world of loneliness, and now she had to take responsibility for it

Mizuki did not move, although she sensed the step and the shift in air. A fist sank into her stomach, and she scrambled to the ground. Even then, she remained motionless, lying on the ground, her eyes closed.

"Loki, Amado and I will remain in the Survey Corps, whether you like it or not."

Mizuki kept silent.

"I'll be waiting for you to have breakfast. Make sure it doesn't take too long to pick up the pieces of your pride."

She perceived footsteps walking away and, in the distance, exclamations of congratulations from various voices, known and unknown. With all evidence, a fight within the Corps broke the monotony of military life and always inflamed tempers, especially if the one involved and then defeated was the cadet who had become famous for literally crawling under the feet of a giant. Mizuki laid a hand on her still-closed eyelids and rolled onto her stomach, breathing heavily. Then more footsteps approached, and her jacket was thrown badly in her face.

"I'm sick and tired of picking up the clothes you throw around, brat. Next time I'll let you walk around naked. And this one is yours too, take it back."

Two tiny hands entwined around Mizuki's neck, warming her. She hugged Theo automatically, continuing to keep her eyelids down.

"Come on, get up. You've put on enough of a show already."

"Captain, don't you have any compassion at all? Can't you see that I've just been beaten up?"

"I don't know if you're worse as a liar or a soldier."

Mizuki smiled, and slowly lifted the arm from her face. Well, of course he had noticed.

"With a blow like that, I refuse to think you went down. And I won't even allow you to sit around and whine because your little fucking stunt didn't succeed: you could have avoided that blow just fine and knocked her down when you wanted to. You made your choice, so now stop whining." Levi kicked her leg, impatient. "'Get up.'"

A laugh escaped her lips, and she pulled herself to her seat. From that position, she glimpsed the commander approaching, and her gaze, for a moment, darkened. "Ah, there you are."

"Mizuki..."

"You really fooled me, huh?" In uttering those words, the girl pulled herself to her feet and took to flapping her uniform, raising clouds of dust. Levi clucked his tongue and backed away at least a meter, clearly disgusted.

"What do you mean?"

"I figured you had in mind to demand a quid pro quo for my request, and it was equally obvious that you would make your move in the course of the scouting. Well, you thought it right, I admit. Keep my comrades here, and then put me on a team with people about my age and who looked tremendously like them, in appearance or character. Whether they were dead or not, it didn't matter. I would still have felt in my skin the feeling of risking to lose them again because of the giants. You knew my nerves would be on edge after the expedition. You put me in the position of not being able to refuse, whatever the price would be."

"I don't know what you are talking about." He said so, Erwin, but neither Levi nor Mizuki missed the elusive glow that sometimes dwelled in those bright celestial irises.

"I expected it, and yet you tricked me anyway. And you did it in a way for which I tremble in anger, for it was all the fault of my stupidity. You understood my comrades better than I did and used this advantage to the full." After giving herself a wipe-down, which in any case the captain judged highly insufficient to restore her civilized appearance, Mizuki slipped on her jacket.

"I still don't understand what you're talking about. But I can tell you that understanding people is my job, and besides, age must have taught me something. You are just seventeen years old."

Now she'll say it, Levi thought.

"Almost eighteen," she pointed out matter of factly without any hesitation. "In any case, you won."

"I don't feel I've won anything, actually."

"My comrades will stay here, and you snatched a promise from me. You were prepared to pay the price, but you can't do anything if the soldiers concerned object to the relocation." Mizuki shrugged her shoulders. "I don't think this matter worries you, because you know I always keep my promises, but... I will honor the agreement we made. Every promise is a debt. That doesn't change the fact that I think you owe me at least a little compensation, for the catch. Promise me that you will assign them to some captain who knows his stuff."

"All my captains know their stuff, Mizuki." Erwin held out his hand to her. "But I will see what I can do to accommodate you."

Had Erwin anticipated this, too? Was it in view of such a request that he had kept the available position on Mike Zacahrias' team?

She studied that inviting act for a few moments, shook her head, and then seemed to accept defeat.

The division commander and the brat shook hands as a sign of peace.

Levi, on the sidelines, contemplated the scene.

It was not raining that day, and the brat's comrades were not yet dead. With her, Erwin or fate had been merciful.

He couldn't help but wonder how long it would last, though.

He trusted the commander's judgment. If he deemed it necessary to bend that brat to his purposes, and make her his own creature, taking the necessary steps for her to survive, he would not object, and indeed would make the process easier.

Yet beneath the surface of those rational and calculating considerations, something within him moved in the totally opposite direction. The hope that that light within her would not be extinguished, and its bearer would never have to bow before the cruelty of the world. That same desire that, a few nights earlier, had prompted him to offer her a comfort she did not seek, and even earlier to believe her promise to return home alive.

Mizuki laughed at a remark from the commander. The discussion that had just occurred between them seemed already forgotten by both of them, and they stared at Levi a few steps away, he, she, and the mute brat, waiting for his response, or a gesture.

She was still whole. She was still herself. She was still laughing in the same reckless and overwhelming way as she had done during the first night at the castle.

She was still burning with light, and with life.

He had to rely on that strength present in her, and hope that it was enough to keep her from being crushed.

OOO

Later that afternoon, Commander Erwin Smith received a not too unexpected visit to his office.

"What is it, Lavinia? What can I do for you?"

The visitor, standing in front of the desk, allowed herself a few seconds before answering. "I just wanted to thank you."

"And for what?"

"For helping me, and trusting me enough to follow my plan."

Yes, her plan.

Erwin still remembered the amazement he had felt a month earlier when, in the middle of the night, Lavinia Williams had shown up at his office for a confidential meeting and offered him an alliance.

Erwin dismissed the statement with a wave of his hand. "There is no need for all this formality. If you had not supported me, I would not have been able to settle the matter so painlessly for her. I would have had to take much more drastic measures, and I wouldn't have liked that. We helped each other, didn't we?"

The girl shrugged her shoulders. She did not seem really interested in the conversation, and Erwin guessed that she did not care about what he thought either. "We can say so. You wanted to put a collar on Mizuki, I wanted her to survive."

"I didn't want to put a collar on anyone. I just wanted..."

"I want to be clear on one point. She will never offer her heart." Lavinia's voice rang out icy and unyielding, and she hurled those words at the commander as if she were throwing him a gauntlet. "Never."

Erwin was silent for a few moments. He intertwined his hands, and rested his chin on them, studying the girl in front of him as if he were seeing her for the first time and feeling the strong sense that he and she were more alike than he had thought. Of the sweet, shy, clumsy, weak Lavinia all trace had disappeared in that beautiful, proud goddess who kept her imperious gaze pointed straight ahead.

Lavinia, in the course of their secret meeting, had told him in no uncertain terms that Mizuki, for various reasons, could not follow inconvenient orders, even prophesying that she would try to cut off her comrades from the Survey Corps; and those statements had both proved to be correct.

She had advised him to team her up with people who would remind Mizuki of her team members. This, she assured, would reinforce her intention to keep the real ones away from scountings; she did not explain why she was so convinced of this, but Erwin guessed that it depended on her being aware, in Mizuki's past, of events likely to make her suggestible to stressful situations. Finally, she had told him to demand, as a quid pro quo for whatever request the girl made of him, that she undertake to obey orders and, she was careful to point out, to avoid doing foolish things outside the walls; to prevent the commander from having to actually give up three soldiers to please Mizuki, Lavinia promised him that she would make sure that this would not happen, by appealing to Loki and Amado's pride.

"But will it work?"

"Yes. Mizuki was very close to her mother, and she loathed untrustworthy people, so she grew up with the idea that once she made a commitment, it was imperative to see it through. If she gave her word, she will keep it."

In return, Lavinia tore Erwin a promise that he would not employ Mizuki in some dangerous strategy as an expendable pawn. The commander readily agreed because the survival of the four ninjas was also one of his goals, yet he could not help but be surprised at how the girl showed no sign of caring about the fate of Loki and Amado.

"She will never offer her heart. Never."

"All right, Lavinia. I will keep that in mind."

The girl nodded, without looking up from the desk top, on which a map of the territories outside the walls was unfolded. Mechanically, Erwin's hand stroked the circle drawn with a red pencil over the forest the formation had passed through during the last scouting.

That gesture did not escape Lavinia's notice. "Ah, you're pondering the log thing, huh?"

"Yeah. It's my duty to find an explanation for what Mizuki claims to have seen. "

Catching the question implied in the commander's words, the girl's lips stretched into a smile. "Mizuki saw what she said she saw. Her eyes, believe me, can be relied upon as much as her word."

Erwin contemplated the possibility of diverting the discussion to Mizuki's red eyes, which still remained fundamentally a mystery apart from the little information gathered by Levi; knowing, however, that it would be easier to get Wall Sina to speak than Lavinia, he preferred to delve deeper into the topic they were already discussing. "This brings me back to the problem of explaining how a completely impossible event came about. Because that a human being penetrated the giants' territory to take up gardening without being mauled is absolutely impossible."

"Well, of course, for one of you it would be absolutely impossible. Except, perhaps, for Captain Levi." Lavinia took a step closer to the desk and, with eyes that twinkled in a vaguely sinister way, followed the red circle drawn by the commander with her fingers. "But for one of us, perhaps equipped with a device for three-dimensional maneuvering, it might not. That would also explain why the logs were placed, in a forest stretching for miles and miles, exactly where Finnian squad would pass. And that's the same possibility you're thinking about as well, right?"

An imperceptible smile escaped Erwin. "Do you think one of the comrades you give up as missing survived and is trying to get revenge on you?"

"Oh, no. They are all dead. But just as we got here, why exclude that someone else has succeeded?"

"Well, because that is also..."

"...highly improbable, sure. But not impossible." Lavinia's fingers slid along the map laid out on the desk until they reached the reproduction of the city of Shiganshina. "You know, commander, these past two months I have dabbled in reading a few reports. To be more precise, the ones from the fall of Shiganshina. Well, I won't hide from you that I found what happened very curious. Very curious indeed. I mean, a giant more than fifty meters tall appearing out of nowhere and just as much disappearing into nowhere; and the same can be said of the one that you call ... ah, what was it like?"

"The armored giant," murmured Erwin, not missing a syllable of Lavinia's speech.

"Ah, yes. Thank you. Well, you'll admit it's strange, too, won't you? Two giants so peculiar and never before sighted outside the walls, suddenly appearing in front of Shighanshina's gateway, and enacting a well-planned, concerted action with the obvious goal of penetrating inside the city. Just as if they were endowed with intelligence, unlike the other giants. Just as if..."

Lavinia left the sentence hanging, but Erwin understood very well the words she had kept silent.

Of that theory devoid of any evidence and likely to throw the whole of humanity into chaos, if spread, only two people were aware: himself and Hanje, whose discretion on such a subject he did not doubt in the least.

"You can rest assured, commander. None of your men have spoken. This is only the wild fantasy of a recruit."

"Who else... had the same fantasy?"

"Only me. I didn't talk about it with my teammates, and none of them could ever figure it out on their own. Loki is a fool; Amado is only interested in giants at the moment; and Mizuki is a soft-hearted naïve, and she must remain so."

"Good."

" Given the situation, I believe it is not at all impossible to reach the walls without getting devoured and penetrating inside them, if one is equipped with the right tools; just as it is not impossible to go back outside to do some gardening."

"So, according to your theory, a ninja like you cut down those branches to hinder the scouting and, more importantly, to get Finnian squad in trouble."

"Yeah."

"Did you also try to fantasize about the reasons why he might have gone to such lengths?"

The girl shrugged her shoulders. "The plausible reasons are only two: to gain something from it, or out of hatred. Our presence here might pose a threat to this unknown subject and his plans, and so he might have thought to take advantage of the scouting to eliminate at least one of us without arousing suspicion."

"What about hatred? Mizuki can be a bit problematic at times, but to actually try to kill her..."

Lavinia did not reply immediately to these remarks. Her charcoal-colored eyes slid back over the map to point at the red circle. "This is because she is one of them. An Uchiha; although some of our compatriots would rather call her a dirty Uchiha. "

"I'm afraid I must ask you to be a little more explicit, Lavinia." Erwin bent his torso forward, certain that he was on the verge of grasping an extremely important piece of information.

"Onizuka is Mizuki's mother's last name. When their children were born, her parents decided to bestow that surname on them in an attempt to make their lives a little easier. It worked with her sisters, but not with her. She is an Uchiha to the core, just like her father. And the sharingan - her ocular technique - is irrefutable proof of that. It is a mark from which there is no escape, and it has always doomed the Uchiha to attract people's hatred and fear."

Silence fell. Slowly, Lavinia detached her fingers from the map, as if to suggest that the conversation had come to an end.

Commander Erwin Smith, nodded, "I will keep your suggestive theory in mind." He said so, but in reality they both knew that he shared it fully, in every detail.

Lavinia lowered her head, and when she raised it again, the sinister aura that had surrounded her during the exchange had vanished. "If we're done, I'll get back to my duties, sir."

"Sure." Erwin watched her head towards the door but, when she was about to open it, he stopped her. "Lavinia."

"Yes?"

"It will be a pleasure working with you."

An indecipherable flash crossed her gaze. "Who knows," she said. Then she opened the door and left the room, leaving the commander to wonder which of the two had really manipulated and exploited the other.

OOO

On the afternoon of a week later, Mizuki and Lavinia were transporting on Dita Neiss's orders the crates of supplies just delivered to the Corps, shuttling between the wagon stopped in front of the gate and the warehouse. They did not speak, but the atmosphere between them was relaxed. After the interlude of the transfer to the Garrison Corps had closed, relations between them returned exactly to their pre-expedition state, for neither could tolerate being without the other for too long. The subject was not touched on again, but Mizuki nonetheless assumed a smug expression when she was told the squads to which each of her friends had been assigned: Amado, like her, to Hanje, Loki to Mike Zacharias, and Lavinia to none other than the commander himself.

Mizuki sang at the top of her lungs, earning glances and jeers from the soldiers they passed along their path. As much as she adored music and everything related to it, her singing skills were horrible, but that did not stop her from frequently delighting the entire Corps with her concerts.

That day, her mood was particularly good, and so the protests of her fellow soldiers appeared to her as pointless pleas, considering herself entitled, as such, to ignore them.

During one of their rounds, they encountered captain Levi returning from a training session with recruits, covered in mud and dust, whose mood, by contrast, appeared particularly black. Reached by the reckless singing of Mizuki, who sang a verse in his honor on the spot, Levi addressed Lavinia with an icy expression. "Find a way to shut her up quickly, or I will shut her up permanently."

"'Yessir'."

"And take a break, you've been working for two hours in the sun."

As the captain strutted away, Lavinia first observed him, and then the friend at her side who, while continuing undaunted in her activity, followed Levi's figure with her eyes. "Listen, did something happen, by any chance, between you and the captain?"

Mizuki jerked and suddenly stopped singing. "What are you talking about?"

"I don't know, he seems to be acting a little differently with you lately."

"But if all he does is insult me from morning to night..."

"And it's not just him. You're weird, too."

Despite her attempts at denial, Mizuki's unconscious reaction confirmed Lavinia's suspicions, and she took Levi's suggestion about making a break. After they had lain down in the shade of a tree, with much questioning and innuendo Lavinia managed to extract from her mouth an account of the night before the scouting and the conversation that had taken place in the dungeon.

"As you can judge for yourself, it was no big deal. I just got caught up in the situation." concluded Mizuki convincingly, fiddling with a lock of hair. "In the end, the more I think about it, the less I understand why I lied to Petra. I have been so stupid!"

"No, I think you did the right thing, if you didn't want to enrage her," replied Lavinia quietly, also busy weaving her fingers through her friend's hair. "'Sitting up all night looking at the stars and talking is a far more intimate act than just having sex, don't you think?"

Mizuki fell silent, puzzled. After that, she hastened to clarify, "We didn't really talk."

Lavinia shrugged her shoulders. "If you say so."

After those words, the girl turned her gaze in the direction of the building, fearing to discover the captain secretly spying on them, but she saw no one.

With her heart in turmoil, she brushed her calf and, under the fabric of her pants, sensed the burn scar she had shown, in the whole world, only to Mizuki.

The fact that her friend had always been unfamiliar with such matters, and thus had never taken an interest in anyone, outside perhaps Rei, had always come in very handy.

Part of Lavinia was under the illusion - consciously - that she was the reason for such an attitude. In reality, she was well aware that Mizuki had always kept away from it simply because she was occupied with more pressing matters: her mother, her family's problems, and, after that terrible summer night, her studies to become a doctor.

She knew that Mizuki did not love her in the same way she did, and that the promise of belonging they had made to each other had very different meanings for each.

If things had carried on that way, and Mizuki had belonged to no one, however, she would have been fine with it.

But now...

She had feared that her Mizuki would offer her heart for the cause that people within the walls believed in and died for.

But perhaps she had been too naïve. Perhaps something far more irreparable was going to happen.

Perhaps her heart was going to be stolen.

And perhaps it was an unstoppable process.