"Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions"

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Mikasa despised Annie, she hated the blonde; she couldn't figure out why but just looking at her made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end and alarm bells went off in her head, she simply didn't trust the girl on instinct and how close Eren was getting to her only made the hate deepen.

Mikasa deeply cared for Eren, he was her older yet adoptive brother to her and his late mother made her promise to keep him safe, but that girl made her concerned, she could never figure out what she was thinking, always being one step ahead of everyone else was her speciality and it worked in keeping everyone on guard.

Except for Eren, he always seemed to be close to her, she'd seen them slinking off for their secret training sessions, Eren turning back up filthy and bruised with the occasional bit of blood staining his lip; simply it wasn't safe for him, but he seemingly didn't care.

Mikasa hated the fact that so far in rankings she was always seen as second best to Annie, the girl always seemed to disappear in most situations but somehow even her barely attempting things she was still as at the top of the class.

Mikasa meanwhile put everything she had into the training and always seemingly gave more than the others; she'd keep pushing long after the others had fell in exhaustion, but all this still wasn't enough to surpass Annie Leonhart.

"Whatcha glaring at?" a loud voice in her ear made her jump, Mikasa was so focused upon her thoughts that she'd forgotten where she was, turning her gaze to the voice she saw Mina grinning wildly at her, "I saw your glare and got curious, didn't think you were that focused on your target" she laughed leaning back in her seat.

"It's none of your business Mina" Mikasa scolded looking back to the front of the class pretending to be more interested in the paper in front of her, but her person of interest wouldn't leave her mind.

"It's either Annie or Eren?" Mina said not even looking to Mikasa for confirmation, "I can read it on your face, and it's the usual reasoning" she smiled her winning grin, "What happened this time?".

Mikasa sighed, like everyone else she'd stared to believe Mina was some sort of psychic always able to figure out what was on your mind, that or it just happened so often she had gotten into a routine which it was safe to assume with a person like Mikasa.

"I just don't like Annie" Mikasa muttered looking to the front where she continued glaring holes into the back of the blonde's head, "There's just something about her I don't like, and it annoys me with how much time Eren spends with her, surely he should see the signs that she is trouble".

"What are the signs?" Mina asked with a deadpanned expression and voice knowing where this was heading.

"It's just a feeling I get and how she trains him too, she's too rough and harsh with him, you know he could get badly hurt and-".

"Mikasa" Mina cut her off, probably one of the few brave enough to do such a thing, "Maybe you're simply jealous of Annie and Eren getting so close, I know you care for him too, but you can't keep him tied up with that scarf of yours" she said, Mikasa instinctively taking a gentle hold of the red item.

"And besides, I think they made a cute couple" she cutely smiled leaning on her hands to look at them, "Though they've yet to realise it" she giggled looking back to Mikasa who's glare had retuned, but she said nothing, knowing an argument with Mina was pointless.

She instead returned to looking at the front of the class, Mina's words lingering on her mind but mostly being overtaken with her feelings towards Annie.

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"I need to fight her" Mikasa muttered staring at Annie across the room at her, with the Blonde paying her no mind instead focusing on eating her own meal, "I need to show her that she can't just do what she wants".

Exactly what had lead Mikasa down the route she wasn't sure, but a feeling inside her gut just made her want to fight her, like an instinct to defend Eren from the girl whom she refused to trust being anywhere near him.

She clenched her hand together to make a fist wanting to just take Annie right here.

She knew she couldn't, not that she thought Annie could outmatch her on the contrary, while they hadn't fought before, Mikasa had beaten everyone who'd she sparred against.

No the problem was more how the instructors would react upon learning she'd started a full-on fight with the blonde.

She begrudgingly had to wait until the next sparring session so there was a reason to get away with it unless she get punished and possibly kicked out should she go too far, separating her from Eren.

"So, are you not going to eat that?" the curious voice of Sasha interrupted Mikasa's thoughts, turning to look at her she saw the girl with crumbs around her mouth pointing inquisitively down at Mikasa clutched hand, glancing she saw a squished piece of bread that she had been holding when she clenched her hands together in anger.

Mikasa sighed taking a breath to calm down and dumping the bread into Sasha's awaiting hand having no appetite all of a sudden, "Whaf's wrong wifth you then?" she asked through mouthfuls of bread, earning a glare from Mikasa who hated the action.

Quickly swallowing it she sheepishly smiled to Mikasa, "Sorry, what's wrong with you Mikasa?" she asked clearly now with Mikasa looking slightly less irritated now, "You look really angry, and you destroyed that bread?" she continued to question.

"It's Annie…" Mikasa hissed returning her glare to the uncaring girl who was mindlessly picking at her bread she held in her hands, "…She can't be trusted, she's dangerous and will get Eren hurt if someone doesn't do something about her attitude" she muttered her fists clenching again.

"I want to fight her; no, I need to fight her" Mikasa muttered.

Sasha was quite sure she'd stopped talking to her at this point, she'd moved into her own world of pure anger towards the blonde, "I-I don't think that's necessary Mikasa, m-maybe talking would be enough" Sasha futilely attempted to calm her down but to no avail.

Sasha looked across the room to Annie now, who had seemingly noticed the constant stares but was paying them no mind, Sasha was good at sizing things up like that and could tell just from a look at the body language that Annie wasn't worried nor caring of Mikasa's hate towards her.

Sasha had seen them both on the training field and knew they were and instant match for sparring, in her mind anyway.

She shrugged her shoulders knowing that Mikasa could hold her own should the need arise and turned to talk to the other members of their table, all the while Eren was now staring at Mikasa himself.

He'd know of her displeasure of him and Annie working together and would constantly fight with her about it, with him usually being the one to walk away knowing that arguing with his adoptive sister was futile, she was just far too caring towards him and hated him doing anything that could end up hurting him.

Eren shook his head knowing that trying to get Mikasa out of this was pointless as she'd already made up her mind especially as she wanted to protect him.

All he could do was watch and see what happened.

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As the sun shone high over the training field that cadets went about sparring with each other, most of them weren't taking it very seriously with most just pathetically flailing at each other or just messing about while other simply slacked off, when the instructors weren't looking but little got past the eagle-eyed Scout instructors as Jean found out, now lamenting his slacking off as he was doing 100 push-ups under the observation of Henning.

The other cadets who were taking this a bit more seriously weren't doing the instructed training method, instead the pairs like Annie and Eren were using this time to practise their own moves for personal use.

Initially, Eren wanted to disregard this hand-to-hand training from the discussion he had with Reiner near the beginning of their training days, this was mostly for the MP role but as time had gone on and they were nearing the end of training, Annie had highlighted to him that while they may not always need hand to hand combat experience, it can come in useful more often than not.

No matter what regiment you'll be in there may be the odd person that takes a problem with you and want a fight, but another reason is that it's a great exercise to stay in shape, as to use ODM Gear effectively you have to keep an eye of your weight and body fat as the lighter you are the easier it is to manoeuvre.

Eren and Annie circled each other both putting their arms in Annie's unusual fighting stance, in essence they were a mirror of each other.

They slowly moved closer, each eyeing the other up, trying to guess their first move, their eyes darting between the body, arms, and legs to get any sort of reading but so far both were keeping it a secret.

Eren moved first taking a lunge foreword in an attempt to bait Annie out, but she stood strong not breaking her guard so instead Eren went low in order to force her to move, by trying to take out her ankle.

Annie saw this and dragged her foot back taking Eren off balance as he skimmed past, she saw her opening and immediately jabbed towards his ribs in an effort to knock the wind out of him and win this spar.

But Eren had learned well from her and brought his opposite hand around to grip onto her hers then went for a jab of his own on her exposed chest, only for her to counter it herself gripping it and locking them both up.

Now entwined together, their faces were inches apart staring each other down, neither wanting to break the others gaze, they were both already panting from pre-training and now could feel the breath of the other go across their face.

"What's your next move Yeager?" Annie questioned narrowing her eyes to try and bait him.

"I can't tell you the Leonhart, cause I'm not 100% sure myself, why don't you tell me what you think I'm going to do?" he breathed with a small smile crossing his lips.

Annie had her own smile appear although only a small one, she knew he had a plan, he just wanted her to lower her guard, "I reckon you're going to try and spin out of this and land a kick to my abdomen, the only problem is I'd have to lighten my grip on your forearm first" she squeezed them to emphasise her point and knowing it worked from the gritting of his teeth.

Eren chuckled as she'd read him like a book, he was getting rather fond of this new Annie, they had been having a few more of these fun spars as of late, yes, she still hurt him a lot and he always lost but she'd talk a bit more during it and seemed to even lighten up in her own Annie way.

There were still times when they'd spar properly and she go back to her usual emotionless self during it, but she'd pick him up after and check he was okay, so there was always a form of friendly Annie in there somewhere.

Eren smiled at her not exactly having a problem with her being this close to him, in fact it was something he had gotten oddly fond of in their spars not that he'd ever tell anyone, especially Mina.

He glanced and could see her standing a bit off keeping an eye on them with her usual sly smile.

He sighed and faced Annie again who still hadn't let her grip up, in fact he was sure she had tightened it and Eren wasn't actually complaining, maybe it wasn't so bad to spend a little bit more time this close to Annie, he found her to be quite intoxicating sometimes.

He shook his head as the thoughts of Mina's continuous teasing came to mind, where she'd always make comments about him and Annie being a cute couple, "She couldn't be serious could she…" he trailed in his mind looking Annie's features over again.

He couldn't help the sweet smile that went across his lips as he looked over her, her eyes, her nose and even her lips, he inspected them all and became almost lost in his own world.

Annie noticed this and saw her opening, she let her grip go and spun around Eren who was still holding her arm, coming about she brought her leg around and smashed the back of her leg and ankle deep into his chest immediately keeling Eren over as he gasped for breath.

He coughed and spluttered as his hand slowly peeled from it's grip on her wrist, "You lost your focus and paid for it" she smugly stated looking down at him but hiding her smile not wanting any others to see.

"S-S-So it seems" he spluttered trying to desperately get his lost breath back.

Annie crouched down to get near his face, "What were you looking at anyway, you completely zoned out?" she questioned inspecting him to makes sure there wasn't any blood coming out.

Eren's face immediately turned bright red as he looked away so she wouldn't see him, "N-Nothing!" he sputtered out urgently only regretting it as his stomach hurt more from his haste.

Annie cocked an eyebrow in confusion at not wanting to admit, she thought back to those moments ago and where he was looking, "Was he…" she thought, her eyes going wide realising he had been looking her over.

She immediately shot up and looked away from him in embarrassment, knowing that she had been doing the same thing.

"What did you do to Eren?" a cold voice rang out behind Annie.

She recognised the voice and tone, immediately her stone-cold expressionless face returned, she looked back around where Eren was still getting his breath to see none other than Mikasa looking him over but not touching before facing to glare her down.

"We sparred; this is what happens, you should know" Annie muttered back, not breaking eye contact, she knew all about Mikasa's desire, she wanted to fight and had to do it during a sparring session else she'd get in trouble.

Annie however had been scouting the Akerman from the first day, she knew from that first look they'd end up fighting one day, but Annie knew she would win, as she had a serious edge over Mikasa.

"There was no need to hurt Eren this bad" she coldly responded with anger lacing her quiet words.

"No Mikasa I'm fine, we just got a little carried away is all" Eren tried to cut in still holding his chest as he stepped between the two girls, he didn't want either of them to get hurt in this altercation, "There's no need to fight" he pleaded as all the cadets stopped to gather around and watch.

"No Eren there is, she needs to learn that she can't do what she wants" Mikasa hissed not breaking eye contact and neither did the blonde.

"Mikasa-" Eren tried to retort only to be cut off.

"Eren move out of the way, there's only one thing your Step-Sister will understand now" Annie muttered moving up to push Eren towards Thomas and Armin who held onto him knowing better that to interfere themselves, "She has to be taught her own lesson" Annie muttered in her cold tone and taking her stance.

Mikasa stood her ground, not wavering in her look before slowly starting to walk in a circle around Annie, who reciprocated before abruptly stopping and dragging her foot in front of her making a line in the dirt, then setting her feet into a comfortable stance, "If you cross that mark, I won't stop until you give up" Annie offered a last warning, but she knew Mikasa would just ignore her.

And Mikasa did just that, she ignored her warning and charged straight in, readying her fist aiming straight for Annie's seemingly exposed chest.

Annie noted how fast the girl moved, she'd seen how Mikasa was during training, and this was almost no surprise to her, the girl seemed to have a gift for fitness and could always push herself faster, Annie assumed it was something in her genes that gave her a better stamina but that didn't help with fighting.

While she may be physically fitter than most thanks to her genes, it didn't immediately make her the better fighter, after all, only a fool relies on strength alone.

As Mikasa stepped over the line, Annie acted shooting her leg out and grabbing a hold of Mikasa's jacket before forcing her past Annie and into the dirt.

Mikasa grunted and shot an angry look back at Annie who fixed her position towards Mikasa, she shot back up and shook her wrist that took the brunt of the fall, Annie didn't say a word and simply stared her down, almost beckoning her on with a look.

Mikasa gritted her teeth and stepped up to Annie, this time not letting her use her speed against her now, she took her own basic stance before taking a quick shot at Annie's head who instead caught it and dragged the large Mikasa towards her before taking her lags out landing her face back in the dirt.

Mikasa grunted as she felt her blood pumping hyping her up to fight, she shot back up for Annie who dodged to the side and crashed her knee into Mikasa's stomach knocking her back down keeling her over.

Everyone looked on shocked as Mikasa went back down, Annie was completely dominating this fight and had hardly broken a sweat meanwhile Mikasa was struggling to breath, so far it was a complete massacre.

Annie dropped her guard as she knew Mikasa needed time to recover and wouldn't be striking her back quickly, she leaned close as the girl desperately tried to get air in to her lungs as a bit of blood coated her teeth, tongue and lips, "Do you know what you're problem is Mikasa…" Annie whispered, "You're far too emotional, you let every little thing that happens to you get in your head and that's what drives you, but the problem is, emotion is a weakness that can always be exploited".

"You pair that up with your over protectiveness of Eren and it's a recipe for disaster, you simple can't control yourself when you get upset, annoyed or anything in-between and when it's something to do with Eren, you lose complete reasoning, you simply lash out and today that happened to be at me".

"And when you put emotion up against a skilled fighter who remains calm, well you've seen what happens" she coldly muttered, "If you want to be strong, you need to let him go and keep a lid on your emotions, only then you might come close to beating me" Annie slowly stood and began to walk away.

"Come find me for a rematch if when you figure yourself out" were Annie's last words before stepping away.

Mikasa glared at her, she hated everything she just said and lunged for her wanting to prove the blonde wrong, but Annie was ready.

Annie was glancing over her shoulder waiting for Mikasa to move, and as she did, Annie spun on one foot bringing the other round onto Mikasa's head smashing into it and knocking her out cold.

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Mikasa didn't know what time it was when she awoke, all she knew was that it was late, and the sun was close to setting, judging by the orange glow coming from the nearby window.

She reached a hand up to rub her head wincing slightly knowing there was definitely a bruise, "Ah good you're awake" a familiar voice muttered from beside her, slowly looking over, Mikasa recognised the familiar figure of Lynne sitting next to her holding a book in her hands that she seemed to be writing in, "I'm guessing you've got a headache?" she questioned.

Mikasa slowly nodded still holding her head, "Well that's no surprise, you took a beating out there" she commented visually checking the girl up and down.

"What happened?" Mikasa muttered her memory being fuzzy.

"Well, you tried to fight Annie and she wiped the floor with you quiet simply" Lynne commented leaning back, "I carried you to the infirmary to get checked over and recover".

At this Mikasa's eyes immediately shot open and she clutched her body close, Lynne noticed and immediately held out a hand, "Don't worry, I know about your condition, only I touched you and I was very careful, I only grabbed your clothes to put you on stretcher, then me and another female instructor carried you here" she informed calming Mikasa down.

"There is something I don't understand, you have Haphephobia, the fear of touch but you can fight just fine, how does that work?" Lynne questioned out of curiosity.

Mikasa looked down at her slightly shaking hands, "I'm not sure, when I'm fighting, I don't even register it, like my phobia just disappears and I don't even consider it, but after, it all catches up to me and I start panicking if I've touched my opponent, sometimes I can control it or it's small like now" she indicated to her shaking hands and voice, "But other times, I have a full panic attack".

"I see" Lynne muttered slowly closing her book and placing it in her jacket pocket, before slowly standing back up, "You learned a good lesson today" Lynne said looking down at Mikasa who gave a confused one in response.

"Emotions are the biggest killer in our world, you let them control you and it's all over" Lynne warned.

Mikasa looked at her shocked, "So I should abandon all emotion like Annie?" she questioned thinking that's what Lynne was referencing too.

"No!" Lynne almost snapped glaring at Mikasa before sighing, "I'm not saying all emotion should be abandoned, but I'm saying you need to control it; today in your fight, Annie used your anger against you, it made you stop thinking about your actions and just strike without planning, she could read this and counter you easily" she walked up to the girl.

"If you could just keep a calm head and not just bull rush in, you might have stood a better chance, not saying you would win but she wouldn't have wiped the floor with you" Lynne revealed, "But you should still keep those emotions, not thrown them out completely, you're still only human after all and if you throw away emotions like joy, kindness, happiness, love…" she trailed off for a moment something clearly on her mind.

"You have to control your emotions, or else the worse will happen" she warned before walking towards the door, "You'll be staying here tonight so the medics can keep an eye on you, the next time I'll be seeing you is if you join the Scouts, I hope for your sake you've figured yourself out by then" she muttered putting her hand on the doorknob.

"Why are you telling me this?" Mikasa asked looking over to the Scout who glanced over her shoulder at her.

Lynne just looked at her for a moment almost seeming to reminisce for a second, "I once knew someone, they were almost just like you, I was close to them and I'd even go so far to say they were a good friend, they were kind, caring, wilful, and always positive with almost never ending amounts of happiness".

Lynne let out a heavy sigh, "One day they made a mistake, a terrible and unfortunate mistake by letting these emotions get the better of them in a critical moment and it cost them everything; they shut themselves off from all these emotions and sure they became strong, but their heart never opened again, for anyone".

Lynne looked back at the door, "I don't want to see someone else make the same mistakes" she whispered before leaving the room and leaving Mikasa with much to think about.

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Annie 1, Mikasa 0

Let me know what you think, thank you.