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

11. Chapter 10

Chapter 10: I'll keep you my dirty little secret. Don't tell anyone, or you'll be just another regret. My dirty little secret… who has to know?

The All American Rejects - Dirty little secret

.

.

March 849

"Sunshine..."

"It seemed incredible that you had kept silent until now."

"Indeed, it's not like me, so you should reward me for granting you a few moments of relief by answering my question..."

"Let's hear it, then. What is it that you want?"

"I read in my book that there are no schools in the Underground City, and..."

"Did you need a fucking book to tell you that?"

"Excuse me, but how else am I supposed to know? It's not like I've been there!"

"Well, so what?"

"Well, so I was wondering where you learned to read and write."

"..."

"What?"

"Did you think I was illiterate just because I came from that shithole?"

"Why are you getting angry? I know very well that you're not, when you're not busy cleaning or drinking dirty water, all you do is write paper after paper. You're so boring! By the way, your handwriting is so precise, you write just like a printed book! Reading your reports is a pleasure. That's exactly why it came to my mind: if there are no schools down there, where did you learn? When you came here on the surface?"

"You are the first person who dared to ask me a bullshit question like this."

"Look, people don't approach you just because you always have that murderous look...that's right, just the one you're giving me right now, in all your grumpiness... Try smiling a little more and you'll see that... Ouch!"

"It's no use looking at me like that. Learn to hold your tongue."

"Sooner or later you'll pull off my ear..."

"…"

"…"

"Anyway, I didn't learn when I joined the Corps. It was my mother who taught me."

"Really?! What a smart woman! Having a student like you must not have been easy. What else did she teach you?"

"What the fuck do you expect? She certainly didn't have time to keep up with me all day."

"Sorry, it's just that you know a lot of stuff, and you're smart too. I thought..."

"You thought wrong."

"I see..."

"..."

"..."

"After she died..."

"Your mother died?!"

"Are you deaf, by any chance?"

"I'm sorry, captain..."

"After it happened, I lived for a while with someone who taught me how to cope."

"Someone?"

"Yeah, someone. He taught me everything I know."

"And what kind of person was he?"

"The kind you wouldn't like."

"But I like everybody!"

"Not this one."

"Mmm, I'm not convinced, but never mind. What happened to him, this someone?"

"We lost touch when I was still a brat."

"You never looked for him?"

"I knew how to survive. I didn't need anyone anymore."

"What a piece of ice! It's a good thing, though, that later you found someone to put up with your bad temper and that you weren't left alone. It really would have been too sad otherwise."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"Speaking of bad temper. A week ago, Rebeca Thompson spent a whole day in the toilet because of a devastating bout of diarrhea."

"Yes, I know. So what?"

"Don't go all holier-than-thou on me. This has something to do with you and your concoctions, doesn't it?"

"Me?! But how do you come up with such ideas!"

"Is the satisfied smirk on your lips enough of an answer?"

"Well, I can't hide the fact that I think she deserved it all. As far as I know, this Rebecca girl started calling Lav a whore only because the guy she was madly in love with had a crush on her."

"You even admit it?"

"I don't admit anything. I only expressed an opinion. My comment, at most, may confirm that I have a vindictive nature, certainly not that I put a certain white powder inside her tea at breakfast."

"How did someone like you become a doctor?"

"That's a good question, actually. If I'm honest, it was a very close call that they didn't grant my request."

"..."

"The problem was not my vindictive nature, though, but my somewhat reckless tendencies."

"Suicidal, you mean."

"What an exaggeration. Well, in any case, in my Village they are quite strict in the selection of candidates admitted to the path for medical training. Each team must be equipped with a ninja-medic so that the risk of mortality in the mission is reduced. The mechanism, however, only works if the subject in question survives the others, and so..."

"You're the worst doctor around, then."

"Eheheh, I can't deny that's the case."

"There's nothing to laugh about, you stupid brat. How come they got you, then?"

"Ah, because the director of the Village Hospital, who later became my mentor as well, wanted to win over my father."

"The dangerous criminal?"

"Yeah. By all accounts, we women are crazy about bad boys. The doctor, at any rate, had known him since before he became a criminal, and she has always been in love with him; but as long as my mother was around, she never had a chance. So after mother died, she thought it best to start the climb toward father's heart by grabbing his daughters' sympathies and accepted me as her disciple. Her plan didn't work out so well, though. We didn't catch on at all, me and her."

"Says the one who likes everyone."

"As they say: here's the exception that proves the rule! Then, it's not that I didn't like her as a person. But I couldn't stand nor can I stand to this day the idea that she had the presumption to take my mother's place."

"I'm sure she wasn't crazy about the idea of dealing with a brat like you either."

"That's for sure. I look too much like my mother for her to like me."

"..."

"..."

"Even though you suck as a soldier, you don't do too badly as a doctor."

"Thank you, Captain, it's always touching when you pay me some compliments. Anyway, you're right, I can't complain overall. Dr. Haruno is the most outstanding doctor I know, and as much as she detested me, she fulfilled her role as a mentor with seriousness and dedication."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"Tomorrow. What I told you last time it's still valid."

"Meaning?"

"No bullshit. This time for real."

"Of course! Did you forget? I promised the commander I would follow orders."

"Yes, but you're teamed up with the four-eyes. If you two dare to come back with a giant..."

"That won't happen. And anyway, what I said it's still valid, too."

"Which of the many blunders you said?"

"I will survive, tomorrow."

"You'd better."

"Trust... OW! Why did you do it this time!"

"If I hear the word trust come out of your mouth one more time you'll find yourself shoveling horse shit."

"What a boring, moody old man..."

"Do you want me to send you back to your room as I would have power to do?"

"No, I want to stay here and look at the stars and wait for the sunrise."

"Then shut up."

"All right, boss."

"..."

"..."

"Sunshine, listen..."

"Tsk."

.

.

"Ouch, Mizuki, you're hurting me!"

"Quiet, or you'll wake up all the giants in the surroundings."

"Mizuki, technically giants cannot be awakened by a loud noise. When poor Albert was still among us..."

"But you're hur...aaaargh."

With a final, firm tug, Mizuki finished splinting Loki's arm. She straightened her back and contemplated her work for a few seconds, satisfied, running a hand over her forehead to wipe away the droplets of sweat. The heat that year had assaulted what remained of humanity barricaded behind the walls already in the early days of March.

"Next time I'm keeping my fucking broken arm!"

"Next time Mizuki and I will let the giants eat it off, so you won't have the problem of enduring treatment. Oh, what's that sore face? Do you want a kiss on the boo-boo?" Nifa approached the group with an amused grin on her lips. Mizuki, Amado, Loki and Hanje had found shelter from the scorching sun under a watering hole in the abandoned village where they were making a stop on their way back to the walls.

"Stop showing off, potato nose."

"How sorry I am if you still haven't killed any giants." Nifa, still sneering, passed an arm around Mizuki's shoulders. "But then again, not everyone is as perfectly attuned as Mizuki and me. Did you see our coordination? When I cut its tendons, she zak! She had already taken it down."

"Nifa, you'll get dirty." Mizuki pointed with her head to the not-yet-dried vermilion stains that mottled her uniform. That blood did not belong to her, but to the soldiers of the squad riding ahead of them in formation that she had tried to save. The thought of the atrocious fate that had befallen those poor men increased the anxiety that stretched her nerves like violin strings; if it had been up to her, she would have been on the rooftops with the lookouts, trying to imagine the exact location of the commander's squad and Lavinia.

"Who cares, Mizuki. The midget is not here, and I don't care if you are a little dirty." Hanje, sitting on the ground beside Loki, feverishly wrote in the notebook in which she, Amado or Mobilit, depending on the occasion, jotted down any information pertaining to the giants that came into their possession. Mizuki called it "Hanje's secret diary", since it passed from hand to hand all the time, and the team leader insisted that Amado and Mobilit, when in possession of it, always carry it on their person during the day and keep it under their pillow at night, to avoid unpleasant thefts by the usual and unspecified competitors in the research Hanje claimed to have. "Listen, you two who took it down: what color were its eyes?"

"I have no idea, boss."

"Neither do I, Hanje."

"I mean, you might as well have taken a few moments to observe it calmly instead of knocking it down like thunderbolts! It's not like anyone was running after us..."

"If we want to be precise, it was about to devour me..."

"But no, that's going too far, Loki! It was just holding you. You were still quite far from its mouth..."

"Amado, your boss gives me the creeps..."

Nifa rolled her eyes, shook her head, and then walked away, leaving Mizuki to grapple with the task of coming up with truthful answers to Hanje's questions; Loki tried to imitate her, but every movement caused twinges in his arm, so he was forced to stay where he was.

The thirty-fourth scouting had not gone as smoothly as the previous one: the abnormals encountered and incidents had followed one after another seamlessly, like the links in an endless chain. The ascertained number of dead amounted to about thirty, and superiors - and Mizuki, who had rescued them - had lost count of the injured. The last close encounter had occurred just two hours earlier: an abnormal and three normal giants had suddenly emerged from the forest the formation was skirting - the same one within which, during the previous scouting, Finnian team had come across a palisade of downed logs, an episode that had led Erwin to modify, by lengthening it, the route. The team on the outermost line, riding ahead of the Hanje team, had been almost completely routed; only the intervention of the group captained by Mike and Hanje herself prevented the situation from escalating, and on that occasion Mizuki and Nifa, saving Loki from certain death, discovered that they had an incredible affinity for taking down giants.

"Hey!" Mike Zacharias, on lookout with Moblit and the other members of his team on the rooftops of the abandoned village, drew their attention with a whistle. "There are giants approaching from southeast!"

Hanje sprang to her feet, throwing the diary into the air, and it was promptly retrieved by Amado before it fell ruinously on the muddy ground. "But this is AMAZING! Before I go back I'll have another study chance!"

From the height of his post, Moblit unfailingly tried to quell his superior's misplaced enthusiasm, achieving as always poor results. "Team leader, please! We are all in danger, try to contain yourself!"

"Guys, get up on the rooftops!" ordered Mike, addressing everyone present, taking it for granted that Hanje would not care to provide such trivial directions, and would soon start speculating about capturing a live exemplar instead. "You people, are you finished with the gas supplies?!"

Amado and Mizuki helped Loki and the other wounded man - the only survivor of the team they had rescued - climb up, and then prepared to await further instructions, even though, basically, everyone present was aware that only one option lay before them. The formation was at a halt, and certainly could not suddenly set off to escape the approaching giants. Thus, all the requirements of a textbook " shitty situation," as the superiors in charge of explaining strategies to the soldiers called it, were integrated. The colorful expression "shitty situation" encompassed all possible and imaginable scenarios in which they would be unable to bypass the giants and, therefore, forced to face them directly.

"Ah! Right now they had to come. A textbook shitty situation, I'd say," commented Loki in consummate veteran fashion.

"Yeah, just now that your arm is broken. A real shame. You won't be able to make use of your over-the-top slashing skills this time either."

"Nifa, you're lucky my arm is out or else I would have already broken that potato nose of yours."

"Don't worry, honey. We girls will take care of protecting your family jewels."

Under other circumstances, Mizuki would have burst out laughing, but in that case she barely heard the friendly exchange between Nifa and Loki. Now that they were in an elevated spot, her gaze kept casting apprehensive glances in the direction where, according to her calculations, the central command team should be.

"Mizuki, stay focused." Nanaba, who stood beside the imposing Mike a couple of rooftops away, shot her a warning glance. "Your sweetheart is fine. No giant has reached the heart of the formation where the command team is; if that were to happen, the rest of us would already have been fucked long ago."

Although she was not part of her team and at HQ treated her confidentially, Nanaba - who was Mike's vice - still outranked her and they were now outside the walls, so Mizuki made an effort to pull herself together. "'Yes, sir.'"

"Oh, kitty, I really wish you would pine for me like you do for Lavinia." Gelgar, lurking on a rooftop on the opposite side of the street, blew her a flying kiss.

"Go ahead and dream."

"What a heart of ice! Come on, I'll tell you what: I'll settle for making a challenge with you, who kills the most giants wins. The loser buys the drinks."

Mizuki smiled. She knew that her fellow soldier was trying to drag her into that nonsense to keep her from worrying too much about Lavinia, and force her to confront the far more real threat that loomed over them. "We have a deal. Don't come crying to me later, though."

"I mean, is this really the time?!" Nanaba turned furiously in Gelgar's direction. "I marvel at you! Instigating a recruit in this way!"

"I am no longer a recruit!"

"And you never were, officially, if we really want to be picky. Come on, Nanaba, don't be so stiff with old Gelgar!" he said, turning a broad smile on her and spreading his arms wide.

"Look, I'll buy you a drink too if you help me catch one of the approaching little ones." Hanje, visibly excited, hopped on the spot a few rooftops away.

Moblit put a hand on her shoulder in an attempt to placate her. "Please stop proposing risky and illegal plans! Commander Erwin..."

"Erwin Erwin! All you can do is parrot his name! Erwin is not here now! Here it's just us and those lovely giants who can't wait to go home with Aunt Hanje!"

"Correction, Amado. Your boss is a freak."

"Shut up, Loki. You don't understand shit. Hanje is a genius."

Mizuki could not hold back another smile. That scouting was so different from the previous one. Dangerous in the same way, or perhaps more so; and for her certainly more distressing. Yet the atmosphere she had breathed during those two days had been altogether different and less oppressive, due mainly to Hanje and her madness, but also to each of the members of her team and Mike's team with whom they had often ended up working together. The different approach to the scouting between the soldiers who surrounded her and her comrades during the first expedition - all novice recruits, terrified and inexperienced apart from Finnian, who was forced to look after them - left her stunned. Yet she did not mind at all facing death and giants in that way. Their presence, the ability to joke even at such a juncture, made her feel more confident and ready to face any challenge.

Mike raised an arm in the air to draw the attention of all the underlings. "There are six of them, two large ones will be here in less than a minute and a half, the three small ones in two. I can smell the sixth one, but it's farther away. We will divide into three groups. One will deal with the wounded, one with the small-class giants, and the other with the remaining enemies."

"Yes, sir!"

Amado, Nifa, and the other members of the Hanje team - Klaus, a boy with a beard and glasses who looked 20 years older than his age, and Keji - were ordered to look after the wounded. Mizuki, on the other hand, would take care of the two large giants with Hanje, Moblit and Gelgar.

"Hey, kitty," Gelagr passed an arm around her shoulders winkingly. "It seems like a sign of fate that we ended up in the same group."

She elbowed him away from her with a laugh. "Yeah, so I can check for fraud. Moblit, I elect you to be the referee of our challenge! Keep count and be careful that this one doesn't cheat!"

"Huh?! No, I don't..."

"Oh, you got your nails out. I like that." Gelgar raised a finger and waved it in warning. "Get your wallet ready, kitty."

"Here they are!" Hanje let out a most powerful shout, more effective than any other call. "In position... draw your blades!"

Captain Mike Zacharias' plan was simple, and involved separating their prey. First, the soldiers in charge of the takedown had retreated to the inside of the abandoned village. On the southeast side of the agglomeration, from which the giants were approaching, only one road faced outward, and it was from there that, with any luck, they expected the enemies would pass. The soldiers would wait for the two larger giants to penetrate between the houses, and then Mike and his men would bypass them to welcome the smaller titans left behind in the charge.

"Men and maidens, get ready to start the three-dimensional movement! And may the best among you win! Let the dances begin!"

At Hanje's order, Mizuki dropped into the void. Immediately the grappling hooks' rewinding system made her regain height and propelled her body forward, wrenching a gasp from her as always. Although she had taken up acrobatics from an early age, she still had not gotten used to the liberating feeling of soaring through the sky that the use of the device aroused.

She and Moblit took to buzzing around the thirteen-meter-class giant that was their prey. Hanje - as always - had not provided for assigning precise roles to the men under her command, letting them choose the best strategy for taking down the enemy. The tendency to not overly bind the activities of her subordinates represented the aspect that Mizuki most appreciated in Hanje as team leader, and perhaps the reason why Erwin - after deceitfully wresting from her the promise that she would carry out orders - had assigned Mizuki to her team, almost as a kind of compensation for the trap he had set for her.

Mizuki whirled around the giant, dodging the convulsive movements of the huge arms and keeping a safe distance. Although that exemplar was not particularly slow, she had fought titans far faster than it. Behind her, she heard Hanje's enthusiastic shouts as she lost herself in multi-angle contemplation of the other giant, and Gelgar's cursing.

Moblit attempted a lunge to the back of the head but, while hitting his target, the blow proved too shallow to bring it down. His intervention, however, distracted the giant enough for Mizuki to make her move. After harpooning the grappling hooks to a building behind her enemy, she rewound the cables, darted past it at knee height and, as soon as she had passed it by a few meters, unhooked the grappling hooks. The rewinding of the cables helped her do a backflip on herself and, as soon as she turned the right way, she again operated the three-dimensional movement. The grappling hooks planted themselves in the giant's back, and she felt herself catapulted skyward.

She readied the blades, clutching them to her chest.

"One to zero!" decreed Moblit, as thick smoke rose from the corpse from the newly felled giant.

"Woah! Mizuki, good shot! Worthy of the midget!"

At that moment, Gelgar felled the second prey with a snarl; then, as he took to the roof again, he winked at Mizuki. "Sorry, little tiger."

She stuck her tongue out at him from across the street. "It's not over yet!"

"Moblit, quick, get down with the notebook before the corpses disappear and write down everything you see!" Hanje prepared to descend from the roof herself, but first she cast a glance toward where they had left the wounded. "Mizuki, go check over there. I think I caught a glimpse of the sixth giant in that direction!"

"Sir!" Mizuki felt an immense sense of gratitude for the squad leader who, sensing the girl's concern, gave one of the few orders of the day, allowing her to go and check that her comrades were all right.

"Hey, Hanje, that's not fair! You're giving her a chance to gain the upper hand just because she's your pet!" complained Gelgar, as Mizuki sped past him in the direction of Loki and Amado.

After running a short distance between the site of the fight and where the wounded were, however, the girl stopped by landing on the canopy of the well that stood in the center of the main square. Not far away, thick white smoke rose into the sky. She sharpened her eyes and, with a slight effort, counted the dark figures silhouetted in the mist exhaling from the corpse of the felled giant: six, including one sitting on the ground. Loki, Amado, Nifa, Keji, Klaus and the other wounded one. She breathed a sigh of relief.

She was so focused on the count that she only passively registered the screams coming from behind her, which was why she noticed the approaching four-meter class giant too late. Later, they would reconstruct that it was a seventh giant that had escaped Mike's very fine sense of smell because it was approaching upwind.

By the time Mizuki became aware of its presence, the giant had thrown itself with all its might against the body of the well. The structure trembled, and she, standing on the edge, slid downward, landing on her feet on the wooden platform that served as the base for the stone structure. With a quick glance, she assessed that she was too far from the surrounding buildings to use the device; in any case, there was no need to retreat to the rooftops: to bring down a four-meter class, the well was enough.

The giant hurled itself at her, but she promptly jumped to the side; the enemy crashed to the ground, and the impact of the body with the wooden platform raised wooden splinters in all directions. Mizuki felt an excruciating pain in her upper back, but she gritted her teeth and did not miss her chance: with all the strength in her body she drove one of the swords deep into the right eye of the giant still lying on the ground. Then she leapt onto his back, and in the process hooked another blade to the device. She raised both swords high above her head and then lunged.

Hanje, Moblit, and Gelgar reached her when the giant's body had vanished. Mizuki emerged from a cloud of white smoke, pressing her left hand to her upper back and leaving behind a trail of dark drops of blood on the ground.

"Mizuki! Are you all right?!" Gelgar was the first to get off the roof and run in her direction.

She studied him for a few moments without replying, then looked up at Moblit. "Hey, Moblit. Did you see that?"

"She's being delirious! Shit, what do we do? She's the doctor!"

"I'm not delirious." Mizuki lifted the hand from her shoulder and pointed her bloody index finger at Gelgar. "Two to one. I've won. Get ready to go bankrupt, kitty!"

.

.

A chilling cry resounded in the hallway. Petra, Gunther, and Oluo, who were approaching Hanje's office, jerked in astonishment; Loki and Amado, who were waiting sitting on the floor beside the door, nodded at them, seemingly indifferent to the moans coming from the room.

"Hey, Oluo. We were just wondering how many giants you've killed by yourself this round. Five hundred to be humble, or does the tally settle more around a thousand?" Loki pulled up, pushing his back against the wall, and cast a glance at Petra to gauge the effect of his bluster on the girl.

"Look, look. What a surprise. You survived, you brat, and you only got away with a broken arm." Oluo stood in front of him, adjusting the handkerchief he wore tucked into his shirt, and studied Petra's reaction in turn. "They told me that Nifa and Mizuki did a good job saving your ass."

Petra, however, ignored them both, and turned directly to Amado with a worried expression on her face. "I understood from Lynne that Mizuki's wound was minor..."

"Yes, indeed it is. Take it easy, Petra."

"Mizuki is perfectly fine, unlike me," muttered Loki, annoyed that he had been blithely ignored.

"But these screams..."

"Ah, no. This is not Mizuki. It's Lavinia."

As if to confirm Amado's words, Mizuki's voice - perfectly lucid and steadfast - was heard from inside the room, exclaiming: "That's enough. Get out of here!"

A few pleading groans followed, then the door opened and Nifa pushed a tearful Lavinia out, before returning to her role as assistant. "I'm sorry, but the patient was clear."

Lavinia let out another desperate howl, before throwing herself into the arms of the person closest to her, namely Gunther, who turned red as a tomato. "Mi... Mizuki... is hurt. It will... leave a scar... on her beautiful skin."

Loki rolled his eyes. "Every time the same story. And this is nothing. Remember when she came back from Stohess, completely destroyed?"

Everyone present nodded. There was no need to spend too many words recalling the episode; their eardrums would forever bear imprinted the disastrous consequences of the cries that had risen from Lavinia's chest that day.

Gunther, in any case, judged it his duty to wrap Lavinia in an awkward embrace.

"Hey, watch out, if she comes out and sees you with your hands on Lav, she'll cut them off," Loki taunted him. The comment seemed to strike a chord because Gunther's grip became slightly less firm and his hands - from the girl's hips - moved up her back.

"Thank goodness!" Petra breathed a sigh of relief, and leaned against the wall. "When I heard that as soon as we arrived Hanje had brought her here immediately to treat her, I was frightened..."

"Ah, it's always like that when it's the doctor who gets injured. Immediately after the fight she swabbed the wound somehow, then on the way back she devoted herself to helping the more seriously wounded who were transported on the wagons. As soon as she gets out of the office, you will see that she will catapult herself to the infirmary, and she will also be in a very bad mood for having to waste precious time," Amado said, getting up from the floor and smiling at the girl.

"Good thing..." Petra finally relaxed her shoulders.

"My Mizuki..." Lavinia pulled up noisily with her nose.

"Rather, how are you doing?"

"All is well. On our side of the formation there were no big problems, you had it worse. Come to think of it, it seems that one squad has completely disappeared: nothing is known of the soldiers who were part of it, nor have any traces of the horses or equipment been found. I knew one of the members by sight, a girl named Isle I don't know what." Gunther tried to keep himself in check as Lavinia continued to press her head against his chest. "We had a lot of casualties this round."

"Yeah, thirty-seven dead. But it's known that the weak croak quickly."

"Oluo! Shame on you, the captain would never say such things!"

"Are he and Eld already in the meeting with the commander and the other captains?" asked Amado, moving just in time before Oluo, hit by Petra's elbow, ended up against the wall.

"Yes."

"Tough life at the top. At least they get more money than us, though." Loki sighed, scratching his head. "This time they'll have plenty to discuss and fill out, with all the problems we've been having."

"Even Captain Levi was worried about Mizuki..."

Suddenly, Lavinia stopped crying and shot an inquiring glance at Petra. "Did he say that?"

"No, but you could tell. On the way back, when we saw her from a distance in the wagons, her back was completely smeared with blood. He told us to come here to retrieve Hanje for the meeting, but I think he also wanted to hear from her..."

Lavinia's eyes narrowed slightly. "Bah..."

At that moment, the door of Hanje's study opened for the second time and Mizuki came out, slipping on a clean shirt intently. "Oh, hello." she then said, after casting a quick glance around. "How nice to see you all gathered here, and alive. Hey, Gunther, what the heck are you doing?" Immediately after uttering that inexplicit but unmistakable threat, she raised a hand and laid it on the head of Lavinia, who, at the girl's appearance, had remorselessly pushed away a livid Gunther caught up in trying to justify himself.

The girl tried to throw herself into Mizuki's arms, but she stopped her with a nod. "Easy, easy. I'm fine, but the wound hurts."

Hanje popped up on the threshold still holding the needle and thread in her hand. "Hey, are you sure you don't want anything for the pain?"

"No, it's okay. It makes me drowsy, and now I have to work..."

"I can go if you don't feel like it..."

"You have the summit meeting, don't you? Don't worry, I'll take care of it!"

Mizuki uttered those last words as she was already halfway down the corridor that would lead her to the infirmary, where waiting for her, outside the doorway, was the line of the less seriously injured whose treatment had been postponed after returning to Headquarters. The girl entered, rolling up her sleeves, at three o'clock in the afternoon and remained there until late evening. Even after she had finished examining the last patient, she stayed to check the condition of the soldiers kept under observation, and to give the nurses on duty instructions for the night. Only then, aching and exhausted, did she take leave and, shuffling her feet, reached the door and stepped out into the dimly lit and deserted corridor.

No, not completely deserted.

She guessed that he was there even before closing the door behind her and turning her head slightly to the right.

Levi, leaning against the wall a short distance from her, under the cone of light from a lamppost, was consulting the envelope of papers he held in his hand.

"Ah, captain..."

"I came from the meeting. It just ended, and I have to hand Dita the documents."

"I'm afraid you'll have to take it back to your room, then. We have kept him under observation for tonight, and he must be granted absolute and undisturbed rest."

"Oh, yeah? I see."

They stared at each other for a long moment, filled with a thousand implied meanings.

"I survived this time, too."

Yes, because she had promised him again. Without arranging it, they had found each other on the terrace the night before the scouting, and there they had stayed all night, side by side, gazing at the stars and engaging in mumbled conversations.

She liked the way they were discovering each other in small bites. She liked the way the captain, when confronted with a personal question, would first resort to one of his sharp, surly comments and then, after studying her surreptitiously for a few moments, give her the answer with a resigned sigh. She enjoyed listening to him, and that he listened to her and remembered all that they had already revealed to each other.

"Yeah, I can see that."

Levi appeared particularly tired and irritable. Knowing him, she imagined that the source of his discontent was to be found in the massive losses suffered during the scouting. "Did everything go well?"

He shrugged his shoulders imperceptibly, without stopping looking at her. "How good can it be outside the walls."

"You didn't suffer any injuries?"

"Are you done with the stupid questions?"

"Sooner or later you'll end up in my clutches, too." Mizuki smiled imperceptibly, and moved a step in his direction.

"I will never be treated by you."

"By Hanje, then?"

Levi rolled his eyes, and crossed his arms over his chest. "For goodness sake."

"She's not bad at all, if the intervention is limited to stitching up a wound." Mizuki tapped a hand on her upper back. She knew him well enough by now to be aware that the captain would never voluntarily bring up the subject for which he was there; so she decided to do it herself because, as much as she normally did not mind forcing words out of his mouth, in that moment her body yearned only for a bed and the anesthetic tablets she kept in a drawer in her room. "She did a good job with me."

"I thought I heard your sidekick howl in despair." Levi looked at her out of the corner of his eye. Although he had not phrased the sentence in an interrogative form, the unexpressed question that explained his presence there despite the time and the amount of work ahead loomed between them.

"Lav always exaggerates. I just got a splinter of wood stuck in my back, no big deal."

"I see." he replied, and it seemed to Mizuki - though she could not be sure because of the darkness - that his shoulders relaxed.

"Rather, speaking of important things... I used one of the techniques you taught me, to take down one of the giants. The one with the halfway somersault. I think it came out well, I didn't even use too much gas." Mizuki imperceptibly stretched her upper body toward him.

"How many did you shoot down?"

"Four this round. Counting the ones from the first expedition, my odds have risen to ten. Six in group and four in solo. If it keeps up like this I'll catch up with you in no time!"

Levi peered at her for a few moments in silence, and seemed about to say something, when from behind Mizuki's back a voice rang out.

"Hey, kitty! I've come to check on you."

"Gelgar!"

"Oh, your eyes lit up at the sight of me... Ah, Captain Levi!" As soon as Gelgar had gotten close enough to catch sight of his superior, his face paled imperceptibly and he snapped to attention.

"Tsk, don't wet your pants."

Levi spun on his heels and started to walk away without adding another word.

Gelgar breathed a sigh of relief. "Damn... He had a more terrible expression than usual. All my life passed in front of me. Hey, what are you doing?"

Mizuki moved forward to under the lamp and placed a hand on the stone wall, matching the spot where the captain had been leaning until moments before.

It was pleasantly warm to the touch, too warm to have served as the support of a human body for only a short time.

I came from the meeting. It just ended, and I have to hand Dita the documents.

She could not prevent her heart, in her chest, from skipping a beat.

"Mizuki? Are you not feeling well?"

Called back to reality, the girl shook her head. "No, I'm fine."

"That may be, but you look strange. I'd better accompany you to your dorm."

"I gladly accept being escorted by those who owe me."

"Take down you crest."

"My crest? But aren't I a feline?"

"You are a strange mix of animals."

Poking each other, Mizuki and Gekgar set out for the staircase that would lead them to the floor where the women's dormitories were located.

"Speaking of which. You can do whatever you want as far as I'm concerned, but maybe you should stop calling me funny in front of Nanaba. I don't think it produces great results as a strategy."

Gelgar's face darkened. "Where did that come from?!"

"You like her, don't you? That's why you try to make her jealous in every way. Although I don't think she could ever be jealous of a brat like me."

"Brat? Sanders and Willy Anderson certainly didn't think so..."

"Huh? Did you say something?"

"No, nothing, never mind. However, for someone who brags so much about having no interest in love affairs, you have some insight."

"Ah, I didn't notice it in fact. It was Lavinia. She's an ace at this."

Gelgar sighed. There, now, that chick indeed had far too much intuition - unlike her companion, who went about the world completely oblivious and unaware. "Look, I don't call you kitty just because of that. It's because you really remind me of a cat."

"Really?"

"Of course. You are mischievous and ungovernable..."

"... You meant to say cute and independent, didn't you?"

"No, I meant exactly what I said."

Mizuki feigned indignation, giving him a little shove that nevertheless drew a groan of pain from her. "You will need a lot of help to make her yours, Gelgar. You're in bad shape. Lucky for you we are friends."

"Ah, and what is that supposed to mean? That you'll help me out?"

"I will accept payment in substitutions in cleaning shifts and tomatoes," Mizuki informed him, stopping at the corner turned which unraveled the magical and mysterious corridor of the women's dormitory.

"Oh, I am indeed kissed by fortune, considering how successful your plan to pair Petra and Captain Levi is proving to be..." Gelgar rolled his eyes, and leaned his side against the wall, arms crossed.

The composed cockiness Mizuki had maintained until then shattered in less than an instant. "And what do you know about it?!"

"Look, everyone knows, Captain for one. Your intentions are so obvious as to be embarrassing, although watching you is a real hoot. I mean, he makes some faces..."

"Shhh, speak low! My and Petra's room is nearby," Mizuki hissed, pushing Gelgar down the newly traveled hallway so as to pull him away from the corner and hallway of the women's dormitory. "Make sure you don't let it slip out with anyone..."

"But did you listen to me? Everyone already knows..."

"In any case, if Petra has no chance, you can just give up because you'll be alone forever."

"Hey!"

"The captain is a tough nut, but we are working on it, and we have a few tricks up our sleeve."

"Meaning?"

Mizuki shrugged, bringing a finger to her lips, and walked back on her heels. "Who knows. I don't pass information to anyone who isn't my client."

"Just listen to her... in the meantime, keep yourself free for this weekend, we're going out drinking with the others to celebrate having survived this time as well. By that time, perhaps the superiors will also have finished writing reports and will join us."

"Roger that. Good night, Gelgar."

"Good night, kitty." Before walking away, however, the man approached again the corner, where the girl was waving at him with a yawn, to ruffle her hair. "You did a great job today."

Mizuki smiled reflexively at that gesture, and watched as Gelgar staggered a bit away down the corridor; in his breath she had smelled the unmistakable odor of mint-flavored liquor, his favorite booze. Mizuki, as a doctor, knew perfectly well that her patients often found the most effective medicines in a place other than the doctor's room. The body could heal; the mind and soul, very often, could not. Once wounded and broken, they could hardly be put back together again. Alcohol, drugs, love, friendship, an unbridled obsession with cleanliness. Everyone invented their own recipe for coming to terms with the horrors that lingered outside the walls. Her included.

But she didn't want to indulge in certain thoughts. Not at that moment, not that evening.

Instead, her mind focused on the feeling of warmth that the contact with the wall had given her.

For a moment, she squinted her eyes, and imagined that other hands had made the gesture of ruffling her hair, hands more rough and clumsy, but capable of transmitting an indescribable warmth and tranquility.

She basked in that forbidden, guilty feeling for a few moments longer. Then she shook her head, yawned again and walked with shuffling steps toward her room.

.

.

"Cheers! To us and to the wonderful creatures that are giants!" Hanje, standing on the bench, raised the glass filled with beer high into the air and then, throwing her head back, gobbled half its contents in one gulp. Beside her, the ever-present Moblit stood ready to intervene in case the previous four mugs already swallowed fatally drew Hanje to the floor. "Squad leader, please...e veryone is watching us..." he attempted, without real conviction and more out of habit than anything else.

That all the patrons of the largest tavern in downtown Trost were peering - some with curiosity, some with mockery, some with rancor - at the long table packed with plainclothes Survey Corps soldiers was true, and certainly not due - not only, at least - to the din caused by a drunken Hanje. One way or another, the presence of those crazy beings - whether they wore their uniforms or not - always catalyzed people's attention. They emanated a different aura than ordinary citizens and soldiers; it was not clear, however, whether this differential expressed a positive value or not. Concealed within that peculiar atmosphere were promises of freedom and adventure - from which even their staunchest detractors could not avoid being subjugated and enthralled - and at the same time danced the shadows of the dark tentacles of death to which they were cyclically exposed and which had already gripped so many of their own.

Some of the patrons were shaking their heads, outraged, marveling at how they could celebrate in such a way, after they had returned to town not even a week earlier decimated and with tails between their legs.

And, without really realizing it, those sophisticated and obtuse thinkers had hit the nail on the head.

The evening of celebration after each scouting was a catharsis, a fundamental rite of purification, for men and women like them, exposed to danger and unable to lead an ordinary existence. To remind themselves that they were, first and foremost, people, and not just meat for the slaughter; and people still alive, by some sort of miracle destined sooner or later not to be renewed; people still alive and with dreams, passions and feelings, though surrounded by the dark tentacles of death.

Everyone at that table knew it, even if they pretended otherwise.

The assembled soldiers were roughly twenty in number: a still convalescent Dita Neiss, Hanje and Mike squads, accompanied by their respective captains, and Levi's team, although he, of course, had declined the invitation to join the group.

Loki, sitting next to Hanje - whom Moblit had finally managed to get off the bench - tried to dab the beer slicks that had landed on his shirt from the woman's overenthusiastic toast. "I still don't see the genius in all this, Amado."

Amado shook his head seraphically. "If you don't get it yourself, there's no point in me explaining it to you..."

"Oh, poor little injured Loki got his shirt dirty. How is he going to do now?" Nifa, seated in the seat opposite the two, sneered. "He is too noble to be comfortable in a tavern."

"Nifa, I think the first thing I'll do tomorrow is to ask the commander for a ban on you."

"Yes, run to Mommy and say your snack was stolen."

"I didn't want to go that far, but..." Loki nodded his good hand in the direction of the waitress, ordering two more beers. "We'll settle it the old-fashioned way. Whoever knocks out first, loses."

Nifa leaned in his direction, amused. "Don't worry, I'll hold your hair while you puke."

Hanje forcefully tapped her open hand on the table. "I like that idea! I should challenge Erwin, too, for the capture of the giant! Ah, if only he were here! Moblit, what do you say?"

But Moblit - incredibly - was not paying attention to her for once. Along with Amado, he was intent on listening and nodding politely at the detailed account of Captain Dita Neiss, seated at the head of the table, about the feeding routine of his beloved horse, Charlotte. "... you see, in the morning, if she eats too much she gets drowsy; too little and she becomes intractable, just like women. One must carefully dose the amount and especially the type of food to offer her. It took me years to devise the perfect mixture, which consists of..."

In the center of the table, Nanaba, Lynne, Lavinia and Eld were having a conversation about more serious matters, such as the reception at the central government of the scouting results and the upcoming goals in sight for the Survey Corps; the taciturn Klaus listened to them sipping his beer and nodding at every comment that met with his approval.

"They won't care much about how many are dead. As long as the plan for the reconquest proceeds smoothly on schedule they will continue to stay out of our way," Nanaba stated confidently, following the rim of the mug with the tip of her finger.

"Yeah. Rumor has it, by the way, that they are aiming to shorten the timeline for base formation. Eld, do you know anything about that?" Lynne bent her head slightly to the side. "Your captain met last month with our major funder, didn't he?"

Eld intertwined hands in front of his chest and struggled to maintain an indecipherable expression, glad that his interlocutors could not read his mind at that moment and realize how little he knew about the matter. Since his return, Levi had not uttered a word on the subject " visit to Stohess," and whenever in the course of a conversation reference was made to it his already frightening expression took on even more grim hues. "He didn't unbutton himself much, really," he said.

"What nonsense. The current plan is already full of loopholes as it is, let alone if they were to shorten the time even further. Only a man like Commandant Smith could combine something good with an absurd strategy like this."

The gazes of the three veterans shifted to Lavinia, who sat quietly with a glass of warm wine in her hand. Although she was the youngest, among them, and they had initially judged her as a burden they were forced to drag along because of some sort of political intrigue - Lavinia, in fact, was a mediocre soldier, and her attitude so morbidly submissive to Mizuki had contributed in no small measure to giving her an appearance of untrustworthiness - they had soon had to reconsider their opinion of her. In fact, the girl displayed a highly developed ability in analysis and strategy-making, a gift so pronounced that the far-sighted Erwin Smith had heeded numerous hints and observations coming from her in the preparation for and during the course of the last scouting, which had helped to stem the damage done by the various mishaps encountered on the way.

"Cooooooome on! Don't tell me you're talking about work tonight, too!" A fairly tipsy Gelgar leaned in Eld's direction and passed an arm around his shoulders. "The usual bores!"

Nanaba rolled her eyes. "And you're the usual drunk, Gelgar. Mizuki should have plucked more money from you. If it were up to me, you would already be in your underwear."

As payment for winning the challenge, in fact, Mizuki had demanded only two glasses of hot wine flavored with seasonal spices typical of Trost's surroundings, one for herself and one for Lavinia, declaring that she considered herself satisfied until the next scouting.

Gelgar winked complicitly at the woman. "You can put me in my underwear anytime, my dear. As for the kitten, on the other hand, she enjoys hissing, but she has a heart of gold." The comment earned him an annoyed look from Lavinia, and a sigh from Nanaba, but he showed no mind. "Why don't you join us in making a fuss instead of just sitting here and getting moldy?"

"Because we have dignity to begin with," Lynne reprimanded him, though she could not hide the flash of mischief that crossed her gaze.

Gunther leaned over Gelgar's shoulder. "Hey, we're doing something really fun this time. We told Oluo that if he were here, the captain wouldn't open his mouth at all, so he went into muteness. We are trying very hard to get him to talk."

Oluo, sitting opposite Gunther, cast a fiery glance at both of them, but his contracted mouth remained stubbornly closed.

"Watch this." Gelgar took a deep swig of whiskey, shook his head, and then turned to Oluo. "Hey, but did you know there's a rumor going around that Captain Levi's favorite is Gunther? He says his technique in the use of the device is ten times better than yours."

"And he thinks I'm even capable of not biting my tongue while riding."

"Oh, all the ladies in the room orgasmed at just hearing about this ability of yours! Even Petra seems interested." Gelgar let out a whistle at the direction of the interested party, who nevertheless ignored him. "In any case, it's also rumored that once you've exceeded a certain number of single kills he will appoint you as his special assistant. Sort of like Moblit, so to speak."

"Oh, yeah? Well, it's not that long away, then..."

"LET'S NOT BULLSHIT!" Oluo stood up and his shout was so powerful and spontaneous that a drizzle of saliva hit his interlocutors, who were already rolling with laughter. "Between our quotations there is a difference of as much as twelve gigants, and..."

"Oluo! Aren't you ashamed of yourself?! You're putting on a show, worse than Theo when he can't find Mizuki!" Petra lifted her coppery head to cast a reproachful glance at her teammate, and it was enough to make him turn red-faced, increase Gunther's and Gelgar's hilarity, and even snatch a smile from the stiff Nanaba.

After scolding Oluo, Petra returned her attention to the conversation she was having with Mizuki and Captain Mike, seated at the head of the table. "And so, you see? This recruit offered the instructor less than half of the potato she had stolen, in front of everyone! They say he ordered her to run until she fell to the ground stone dead!" Mizuki threw back her head and burst out laughing, thus concluding the telling of the anecdote reported in the last letter from Willy Anderson, who in turn had learned it from his own colleagues placed longer than him at the southern training camp where the story had taken place.

After the disastrous outcome of the November scouting and the amputation of his foot, it took Willy several months to make a full recovery but, in spite of all odds, he survived the operation and regained full fitness. Erwin waited for that moment to broach the delicate subject of his redeployment: the current state of development of the technology employed in the Survey Corps required its users to be equipped with all four limbs, and so it was out of the question for him to return to active participation in expeditions. Thus, the commander advised him to submit a request for mobility to be transferred to the ranks of soldiers in charge of training young recruits; he followed the suggestion and, in no time, was reassigned to the southern training camp.

"In any case, I hope she's not dead, and that when she finishes her training she will join the Survey Corps! It would really be too much fun to have a chick like that as a colleague," Mizuki added, still chuckling.

Petra smiled at the thought of the destructive potential of such a well-matched duo.

"Oh, and then there seems to be a really cool girl. Willy says she's a natural and reminds him of the captain."

"No kidding. There's no one like the captain."

"Thank goodness, I'd say." Mizuki shot an amused glance at Petra's slightly imporved cheeks; Mike was also contemplating them, with a sly smirk on his lips. "To complete the picture, we have a recruit who makes a tremendous commotion every other night, screeching right and left that he will annihilate all the giants, and picking fights with anyone who dares contradict him. Also quite a character, eh? If he joins the Corps, Oluo would end up with a new rival."

"It's mathematical that we'd get him. Where else would someone like that go?" Keji, who until that moment had sat silent and concentrated contemplation of the waitress and her abundant décolleté, quickly averted his gaze as soon as a Garrison Corps soldier entered the tavern and grabbed her by the waist and pressed a kiss to her lips. "Really, it's unbelievable. Is it ever possible that all our recruits are total freaks? Never once do we get a nice girl!"

"Hey, watch your mouth! I remind you that you sit at the same table of Lavinia Williams."

"Oh, yeah? So I can hit on her?"

"Oh, you can if you feel like it," murmured Mizuki, in an icy tone of voice that promised death and blood if he ever dared.

"Anyway, I think it's good that you've kept in touch with Willy!" Petra hastened to hijack the conversation before the confrontation escalated.

"I think so, too! We write each other every week, so I can tell him the funny incidents that happen at our HQ, and vice versa! As soon as I have some free time, I'd like to visit him with Theo."

"He'd definitely be pleased ... however, make sure you come back in one piece from your next trip, eh."

"Don't you worry, now that I'm fighting every week with the captain, no one scares me anymore!"

Petra lowered her gaze to the glass of warm wine set before her and to the hands she had wrapped around the glass to steal its warmth. Mizuki had excitedly told her about the adventures she had had in Stohess, and Petra - with a motion of painful surprise - realized that she felt a senseless jealousy for the time and experiences her friend and the captain had shared there; and every time the demon of envy gripped her chest, a strong sense of guilt seized her.

Mizuki helped her and spurred her on so much, in cultivating her feeling for the captain, and Petra repaid her by feeling envy for the terrible adventure she had found herself involved in back in Stohess, against her will and completely by accident. And never once had her friend wavered in offering her support, never once had she given her reason to doubt her word; indeed, lately it even seemed that her irreverent outbursts, which aroused the captain's wrath, had become more numerous and increasingly risky, to the point that only a person in the grip of paranoia and unsure of herself could have thought that there was something going on between those two.

And yet….

Mike, who until then had been listening quietly and with an interested expression to the conversation between the two girls, stretched his lips into a smile. "Since you've been training with Levi you challenge me a lot less."

Mizuki put her hands together in apology. "I know, sorry Captain Mike, but I'm not doing it on purpose! The point is, if I get beaten up badly by you and the captain in close sequence, I won't survive. He's enough on his own."

"I believe you. I've witnessed some of your fights, and he doesn't take it lightly..."

"You can say that! Did you see what he did to me last week?!"

Petra, too, had been watching them, sitting against the wall of the building next to Theo and the spectators that the training sessions, which had now become a weekly attraction, drew in droves, some animated by the prospect of enjoying Levi's fighting skills, others by the curiosity to find out how the captain would make his subordinate pay for her perpetual insubordination. She, on the other hand, cared nothing for the fight itself; her attention was focused on the collision of bodies clutching each other, the unconscious gestures, the flicker of a steely or golden gaze, the shadow of a smile, the sentences left unsaid, the answers to questions never asked, at least not out loud.

More than once, in those frames she was collecting in her mind, she felt that she could sense a complicity that was not expressed in anything specific and yet permeated the atmosphere around the captain and Mizuki.

It was there, it existed, and Petra could not help but wonder since when had it been there.

At one point, Mike wrinkled his nose and took to sniffing the air; Mizuki, who was still complaining to him, did not flinch in the least. Mike's had been one of the first quirks of the Survey Corps members she had become accustomed to and, in any case, she considered it far less unhealthy than Hanje's passion for giants.

The captain's head turned toward the tavern door, which, after a few moments, opened, and a shrunken, elderly man made his entrance into the room. His dull, shiny eyes roamed the room and finally settled on the table of the Survey Corps. The soldiers - sensing that distraught look on them - fell silent.

Mike immediately stood up and, after nodding to Dita, approached the man.

"What's going on?" asked Amado, turning toward the door to observe the scene.

Dita Neiss let out a deep sigh. "It's the father of a soldier who fell during the scouting."

"Ah..."

"Whose?" Petra brought a hand to her chest, a mechanical gesture she made when something reminded her that, in a perhaps not-too-distant future, in the place of unknown relatives seeking answers or a culprit might be her father.

Nanaba wrinkled her brow. "A girl ... tall, with short brown hair and freckles. What was her name...?"

Dita also crossed his arms over his chest thoughtfully. "The name... it's on the tip of my tongue. Come on, she was the one who always put her hands in her hair."

"I got it!" Gelgar clapped a hand on the table. "I got who she is... her name was... fuck, it was..."

"Alina Foster. She was on Captain Ronald Skam's team. And she didn't have freckles, that was Katia."

Everyone present turned towards Mizuki. She uttered that sentence in a calm, quiet tone, as if the conversation was about what drink to order next; but her eyes - even if for a brief moment - darkened, like a room lit only by a candle being blown out by its occupant, and took on the same opacity as those of Alina's father.

"I didn't know you were friends. I never saw you two talking."

Mizuki did not replay to Gunther's remark. The cloud darkening her gaze had already been blown away by a strong wind, and she, as if nothing had happened, was already back to her former self. Her attention, in fact, had been drawn by the entrance of a new patron. "I saw someone I know. I'll be right back!" she exclaimed, hurrying toward the door.

"They were not friends," said Lavinia, following Mizuki with her gaze and providing Gunther with the answer in her friend's place. "A doctor must know her patients and their medical conditions before treating them, and she has always taken this side of her job very seriously."

"Are you telling us that she knows the name and medical records of every soldier in the Corps by heart?" asked Eld in amazement.

Lavinia let slip a smile, from which seeped a boundless pride in her friend's abilities. "Yeah. Besides, she doesn't forget anyone. And that's how it works around here, isn't it?"

The interruption - which took the form of the father of one of their fallen comrades - evoked the thoughts that the evening was meant to oblivion, and the soldiers' mood waned. Now each sat in silence, thoughtful, marveling at how easy it was to live and risk one's skin next to someone without knowing their name, passions, character or appearance.

"Well," Gelgar emptied the leftover beer in Lynne's mug in one gulp, but she did not protest. "What do you say, shall we call it a day?"

"Maybe we should," Eld said with a sigh. "I'd say the mood has dropped enough..."

"Hey, everybody! What are those faces?! The night is still young!" Mizuki returned back to the table at that moment, the only one among them still holding on to some semblance of cheerfulness. With her thumb she pointed behind her to a middle-aged gentleman who, chatting with the owner, was making his way to an empty table recessed against the wall. "That's a friend of mine. He's a musician, he plays the guitar divinely. He said he would like to have someone accompany him singing for the first few songs."

"Where on earth did you meet an old man who plays the guitar?" asked Loki in a vaguely outraged tone.

"So? Who's going to volunteer? Ah, Petra!" The girl, who had lowered her head because she sensed the risk of being precepted and intended to avoid it with all her might, found herself with Mizuki's index finger pointed at her. "We also have to practice, don't we? It's a perfect opportunity! These are the feminine qualities men appreciate!"

Petra squinted her eyes for a moment, so that everyone present believed that she was just gathering courage to flee for the door, heading for the only imaginable salvation from such infamy, since to oppose a refusal to a request from Mizuki was a humanly impossible feat; but, to the enormous surprise of the entire group, she finished her beer in one gulp and then stood up with a determined expression. "I hope this Jacqueline you told me about is right."

"Oh, don't worry, she knows her stuff in such matters, I can promise you that! Gelgar, will you join us?" Mizuki passed both arms around his chest, hugging him from behind, and rubbed her cheek against his. "We women like it, too, if someone sings for us!"

"Hey, kitty cat. Don't tell me this is your trump card," he murmured, casting a sidelong glance at Nanaba.

"It is. In fact, this kitty really does have a heart of gold, since she shares her secrets with you, even though you always mistreat her." Mizuki, who until then had been whispering in the boy's ear, raised her head and cleared her throat. "Hey, Nanaba! Wouldn't you like to hear old Gelgar do some solfeggios?"

The girl bent her head to the side, and turned a mischievous smile on both of them. ""Well, yes, why not?"

Gelgar was silent for a few moments, then covered his face with his hands. "I promise you, Mizuki, if you embarrass me..."

"Don't worry, you can't do worse than me!"

"Ah, damn it!"

Nanaba and Lynne watched in amusement as he stood up and followed Mizuki like a whipped dog towards the table and the old man who had just pulled a tiny guitar from a worn saddlebag. Lynne, shaking her head entertained, asked: "Who do you think she is trying to pair him up with?"

"Ah, good question," Nanaba intertwined her hands and rested her chin on them. "What is certain is that if she keeps the same line adopted with Petra, we'll have a good laugh."

And so, Gelgar - not at all appeased - found himself following Petra and Mizuki to the table where the old man with the guitar was waiting for them, and hoisting himself over it. Then a nightmare began for the two ill-fated fellows: the notes of a rather popular song resounded triumphantly in the air, and as soon as she heard them Mizuki started singing at the top of her lungs, passing an arm around the shoulders of each of her victims and inviting them to do likewise.

Around the end of the second song, the tavern door opened wide again and Levi and Erwin made their entrance.

"Erwin! Levi! You managed to come!" cried Hanje, snapping her head up from the table.

"Yes, we finished the paperwork at a decent time," replied Erwin as he took a seat at the table. Above all, the man thought, I managed to convince Levi to come, and that's the really unexpected thing. Then again, for some time now convincing Levi to go to somewhere or do something to which he normally would not have consented had become much easier; this, of course, as long as a certain someone was involved in any way with the program...

"Tsk. What's all this racket?" asked Levi, his brow furrowed in irritation.

Nanaba pointed with a nod towards the makeshift stage across the room. "Mizuki is training her Cupids."

"Sunshine!" trilled Mizuki at that moment, noticing the two newcomers; with a finger, she pointed in Levi's direction. "This song is dedicated to you!"

The wrinkle of expression on Levi's forehead, if possible, grew even more pronounced; Gelgar and Petra, white as sheets, hastened to free themselves from Mizuki's grip and descend from the stage while she started singing a ballad at the top of her lungs, splitting the eardrums of the entire hall.

Ballad that was abruptly interrupted when Levi, after clucking his tongue, got up on the table, grabbed her by the collar of her jacket and pulled her weight off the stage, earning a general applause; Mizuki, not at all upset, was laughing her ass off.

When he released her, the girl, still giggling, made her way to the counter to order another glass of hot wine, and Levi went after her, telling himself that he was following her to nip in the bud other brilliant ideas like the concert thing.

As they waited to be served, leaning against the counter in silence, they both turned to the table at which all their comrades were seated: Dita Neiss, Moblit, Hanje, Amado, Loki, Nifa, Gunther, Oluo, Gelgar, Eld, Lavinia, Erwin, Lynne, Nanaba, Klaus, Keiji, Petra and Erwin.. They did not exchange a single word; just being next to each other was enough to be satisfied.

She was a person who needed little to be happy, Mizuki. And that evening she was: looking at the table occupied by new and old friends sharing life and celebrating the joy of still being there, Mizuki was happy, intoxicated, dominated by a strange feeling, sweet and bitter at the same time: the impelling desire for time to stand still, the anguish of not possessing a power that would allow her to fulfill it, the need to carve that image into her own heart and memories forever. For she was aware of the randomness of that moment and that image; she knew that the next month that table might still be full, or desolately empty.

And then there was the captain. Not sitting at the table and object of her observation, but a presence at her side and sharer in that unrepeatable and magical moment.

As if following a silent command, Levi and Mizuki bent their heads to the side and their gazes met.

She smiled. "It's..." she started to say, but stopped first.

It's perfect.

"I know," he replied, nodding imperceptibly. He did not smile, but his features were stretched and relaxed in a way that did not happen often.

The bartender placed their orders on the counter with a clatter.

"Shall we go?"

"Yes."

Side by side, Levi and Mizuki made their way to rejoin their comrades.

At the prospect of the concert and at the sight of Petra's and Gelgar's distressed faces, as well as for the unexpected arrival of Levi and Erwin, good spirits had returned to the Survey Corps table, and the soldiers were laughing, throwing cackles, and living. The purifying ritual, the catharsis needed to keep from going mad, had resumed its course, and the men and women pursued by death, in the course of that evening, remembered that they were still living people, endowed with dreams, passions, and feelings.

Yet Lavinia's words concealed a kernel of irrefutable truth.

Each of them laughed that night; laughed, but did not forget.

.

.

April 849

"I'm not in the mood tonight, brat. I'm telling you right now."

"Hey! Pull that hand down and leave my ear alone, I haven't done anything yet!"

"No, but you will. It's a precaution."

"Can you explain why you are in such a bad mood?"

"..."

"Have you been rejected, by any chance...? Ah, dodged!"

"Sooner or later Erwin will listen to me, lock you in a dungeon and throw away the key."

"More than rejected, your mood is that of someone who has been abandoned at the altar... OUCH!"

"Tomorrow we'll go out there and sudden thunderstorms may break out. Do you know what that means?"

"...that we'll shower?"

"..."

"Kidding, kidding, kidding captain! I know what it means. That we won't be able to communicate with smoke signals. Captain Dita repeated it ad nauseam today during the formation review class."

"Tsk."

"We'll manage. As always, for that matter."

"When you're such a jerk I really can't stand you."

"Ah why, do you usually put up with me? You're doing it so good I haden't noticed it. In any case, I can't help it if I was born optimistic."

"Shut the fuck up."

"You could have stayed in the room if you are going to snarl like that at my every remark."

"..."

"..."

"Tomorrow..."

"I know, I know. No bullshit."

"Stop with that know-it-all tone."

"Me too, tomorrow..."

"I know."

"Rain or no rain."

"Why do you always have to ruin everything?"

"Let me at least have that pleasure. If I didn't do it, to mess it up for you a little, who else would dare?"

"Fortunately, no one."

"Come on, admit it, that underneath you like my sassyness: I make your day a little less boring!"

"Insolent brat..."

"Moody captain".

"Shut up, and look at the sky."

"I'll look at the sky, but I won't shut up... OUCH!"

"Tsk."

.

.

May 849

Before passing his hand under the tabletop, Levi waited a few moments, assuming a suspicious expression and already resigned to the inevitable. The gesture he was about to perform was the litmus test for the accuracy of the room's cleaning operations, which systematically almost everyone - even the most gifted soldiers - failed at. To his pleasant surprise, however, Levi found himself observing the spotless palm of his hand, on which not a single speck of dust had settled.

"Not bad, Williams."

"Thank you, sir."

The man observed Lavinia with renewed attention and a respect that even her military prowess had never inspired.

"You may now join Lynne's group engaged in cleaning the lobby."

"Yes, sir."

For the past two days or so, the entire Corps had been preempted until a later date - that is, until the outcome satisfied the captain, and that never happened too quickly - for the most important annual event on Levi's calendar: spring cleaning. No one was saved from the mass mobilization called upon - or, rather, imposed - by the captain, not even Commander Erwin, who was nonetheless granted the mercy of taking care only of his office; but Levi gave him precise instructions, and in particular emphasized several times how all the books stored in the shelves were to be removed, dusted off one by one, and then put back in their place. At those words, the brat had suddenly materialized behind them and offered her services to the commander, before Levi sent her off with a snarl to work on the opposite side of the building.

Thinking back to that moment brought to his mind that he had postponed checking on the work of the team to which she had been assigned, and he let out a deep, annoyed sigh.

"I wish your sidekick possessed half of your sensitivity to cleanliness and hierarchy."

"Mizuki has many other qualities."

"Not that I'm aware of."

Levi prepared to cash in on a dirty look from Lavinia, since the only way to instill in her some healthy sense of insubordination was to bring up Mizuki in realistic and not idyllic terms like the ones Lavinia used to describe her. To his surprise, however, the girl assumed the expression of someone who knew better, shook her head, and started towards the door.

"Williams."

"Yes?"

"Do you have a problem with me?"

Lavinia, already on the threshold of the room, turned slowly in his direction. The face with its elegant and delicate features wore a neutral expression, but in her dark eyes passed a flash very similar to the one that sometimes animated Erwin's gaze, and which Levi knew all too well. He had sensed early on that the girl possessed a far darker and more twisted soul than it could be perceived on the surface; but, at the same time, he had come to the conclusion that this side of her only showed itself in certain contexts, namely when she sensed a threat to Mizuki or to their relationship.

"No, I would say no," she chanted after a long moment of reflection. "For the time being, at least."

The captain could not shake off the vague whiff of threat hinted at by the reply until he was in close proximity to the next and last room to be checked. It was not that the threatening message itself bothered him, but it irritated him that she had put some nonsense into her head about the relationship between him and the brat, a belief that he vowed to eradicate as soon as possible.

A familiar tone of voice from the room at the end of the hallway roused him from his thoughts.

"Gelgar, move over a little further."

"Little tiger, stop ordering me around like I'm a horse."

"But I'm done cleaning here! If you don't move, I can't go on."

The door to the room was open forty-five degrees. Approaching the threshold cautiously, Levi leaned against the wall so as to be able to study without being seen the situation inside through the narrow gap between the door and the doorframe.

The room was crowded with soldiers who, over their uniforms, wore the cleaning outfit. Gelgar held Mizuki on his shoulder, her long hair split into two side braids and her head covered by a handkerchief, dusting the top of the row of cabinets stacked against the wall. Crouched on the floor in the center of the room, Petra and Theo were wiping down items previously placed on top of the furniture with damp cloths.

"Already? Didn't it take you too little time?" asked impertinently Loki, the only unemployed person among those present, who was watching the progress of his comrades' work lying abandoned on the sofa.

"He's right, kitty cat. Who's gonna hear the captain's remarks?"

"Loki, may one know why you are here bugging me without even a broom in your hand?"

The asked slightly raised the arm he still carried hanging around his neck. "Because I still have a broken arm."

"As the Corps doctor, I hereby certify that you are fit for cleaning."

"You can certify all you want, but my buttocks will not come off this very comfortable couch. I can see the dust on that closet from here. Start over again." Loki stretched lazily, slipped his good hand under the nape of his neck, and then lay back with a satisfied sigh.

"Gelgar..."

"Positive, kitty. Go ahead." The man took a step away from the closet and turned in Loki's direction, still firmly holding the legs of the girl perched on his shoulders. As soon as he had finished these steps, Mizuki balled up the dust-filled rag in her hand and threw it, hitting squarely Loki's face.

"What a bitc... coff coff coff!"

"Sorry, Loki. I thought I saw some dust on your face," Mizuki managed to say amidst laughter.

"I still see some! Petra, hand me that rag," Gelgar said with tears in his eyes.

Loki, as the enemy's cannon was being reloaded, continued to cough like hell as clouds of dust fluttered around the room.

"Guys, come on! Stop acting like children!" Petra shifted to escape from Gelgar's reach and his attempt to grab the mop; even as she was scolding them, however, a barely noticeable and somewhat guilty smile had appeared on her lips. "What would the captain say if he were here?"

"Miz..coff coff... swear I'd... coff... kill..."

"What would he say? That's an easy one." Mizuki crossed her arms over Gelgar's head and leaned in Petra's direction. Then she frowned, assumed an annoyed expression, and spoke slowly in a low, deep voice. "Having fun, you fucking brat? You think the room will clean itself? Screw you. I'll make you pull up with your tongue all the dust you've spread."

That perfect imitation of Captain Levi aroused general hilarity, and even managed to wring a laugh out of Loki who barely had enough air to breathe; Theo, who had never laughed since they rescued him, enthusiastically clapped his hands in response to the adults' animation.

Satisfied with the result, Mizuki pointed her gaze towards the door, and made the victory sign. "Hey captain, did you see how good I was? I looked just like you."

As he suspected, the brat had noticed his presence. Levi entered the room clucking his tongue; laughter died on the lips of those present - though Theo, oblivious of the menace, continued to clap his little hands - and the three soldiers nearly had a stroke. As soon as they had recovered enough to be able to formulate a meaningful sentence or nearly so, they all started talking together, trying to justify themselves and shift the blame to Mizuki, but Levi would not listen to them.

Since returning from Stohess, the brat's irreverent outbursts had multiplied exponentially, and had become increasingly bold and difficult to ignore. She challenged him, openly and continuously, because she had realized that, after all, Levi would forgive her, and of this new power she had gotten in her hands, of course, she abused unabashedly.

Then again, she did not assume such an outrageous attitude on every occasion: when they happened to be alone - an eventuality that, in one way or another, had taken to occur more and more often - the brat behaved as she had always done, irritatingly but never over the top. Problems began when a certain someone materialized nearby; someone to whom she intended to demonstrate the existence, between them, of an extraneousness, of a distance that in reality did not exist at all.

The fact that Levi could imagine without difficulty the reason behind that change, moreover, made him go berserk. Sometimes the fact that she and her oddities were easy to understand, and of almost elementary evidence, could prove really counterproductive, for his mood.

His gaze fell on Petra, whose face had whitened and whose lips moved in an attempt to articulate a muffled apology.

A certain someone, right there before his eyes.

"I'd say I'm much better than Oluo, what do you think?"

The newly pronounced cheekiness forced Levi's attention back to his daily source of trouble, which had lately taken the podium, outclassing even Hanje's demands for capture and the dust in corners impossible to sweep.

Mizuki watched him in amusement, her arms still crossed over Gelgar's head and her cheek abandoned on them. "Oh, what's that look? I bet you'd like to pull my ears right now. Too bad I'm too high up..."

Levi did not need to speak. He merely let his murderous gaze slide down, and Gelgar clearly sensed that his options were numbered.

The spirit of self-preservation clearly prevailed in him.

Unceremoniously, Mizuki was thrown to the ground, and over the next few minutes her ears experienced something not at all pleasant.

After he had taken care to impart some discipline to the brat, Levi ordered the group to clean the room from top to bottom again, and on the threshold he shot one last irate glance at Mizuki and Loki. "You two. In an hour I want you in front of Hanje's office."

"What? Why me as well? You're the jerk."

"He must not have liked your laziness."

"I'll kill you, Mizuki, I swear I'll kill you."

"Yes, yes. Now hand me that rag."

Neither dared to disobey the captain's intimation, although it had not been accompanied by any threat: Loki because he held his life dear, Mizuki because, as Petra was not involved, judged it unnecessary to play further with fire. So at the appointed time they went up to the second floor of the east wing, where the offices of the superiors were located, and there they found Levi banging furiously on the door of Hanje's room.

"Hey, four eyes. Open the fucking door!"

"Forget it!"

"That dump you call office needs to be cleaned up."

"I won't let you set foot in here to clean it up, Levi! It would mean the end of my research! You'd be throwing away all my papers, my experiments..."

"The junk must be disposed of! Open up!"

Loki and Mizuki exchanged a long look at each other, suddenly sensing the dark and catastrophic fate that awaited them if only Hanje gave in to the threats, and for once they were glad that she was the most stubborn person around behind the walls.

"This is my kingdom. Why do you care? Just don't come here!"

"I care because we work together, and unfortunately I have to enter this filthy hole."

From the other side, no response. Evidently, Hanje had decided to adopt the tactic of keeping silent, or she had simply immersed herself in her work again, forgetting about the rest of the world.

Levi turned furiously to Mizuki. "Do something, brat."

She furrowed her brow. "Me?"

"Quickly."

Mizuki hesitated a few moments, then cleared her throat. ""Hanje, if you let us in we will only clean under your supervision, we won't touch anything without your permission, and... and Loki has promised that he will listen to all your latest theories about giants as background while he dusts."

"Hey!"

"... Loki, you are welcome in my office. Anytime but now."

"Sorry, captain. I've run out of ideas," Mizuki announced, shrugging her shoulders in response to the sidelong glance Levi gave her.

"Why don't you offer yourself, Mizuki, to hear her theories, huh?"

"Because I already hear them at every training session, and I know them by heart already. I'm not a valid bargaining chip."

"Tsk!" Levi resumed pounding even more fiercely on the door, which, had it not been a solid, thick wooden board, hinged with solid iron hooks to the wall, would have already given way under the captain's far from harmless blows. "Four-Eyes, l'll pull this door and then you down, if you don't fucking open it!"

"Go ahead, Levi. Erwin will deduct the cost of repairs from your salary anyway. If then you won't be able to buy tea with what is left of it, that's your problem."

The threat, unexpectedly, seemed to have its effect on the captain, for the blows - to the relief of Mizuki and Loki - suddenly became less intense, and the two began to hold out some hope that, perhaps, they would be saved.

"Captain, we're here. I found him."

Their final doom was sealed by a sentence from Amado, who was advancing down the hallway in Moblit's company, broom in hand and a handkerchief on his head.

"It's about time."

"Ouch, it's looking bad for us," whispered Mizuki, leaning her upper body toward Loki.

"What, why?"

"You'll see."

After nodding to the captain, inviting him to move away, Moblit approached the door. "Squad leader, it's me. May I come in?"

After a brief moment of silence, the sound of muffled footsteps was heard from inside the room, then the key turning in the keyhole, and, as if by magic, the door opened. Moblit quickly slipped inside, and closed it behind him. Immediately followed a low murmur of voices, interspersed with indignant exclamations from Hanje. Everyone - Levi included - moved imperceptibly toward the source of the sound in an attempt to catch some word or clue that would unlock the secret of Moblit's influence on Hanje, but in vain.

The door opened again with a sinister creak, and this time it stayed wide open.

Hanje popped up on the threshold accompanied by Moblit. "You have permission to enter. Please know, however, that I reserve for myself a veto power over any activity that I deem dangerous to my research."

Mizuki let out a whistle, admiringly. "Did you see that? Only Moblit can do it."

"Why the heck are you getting excited about, Mizuki? Do you understand what lies ahead?" hissed Loki, his hands fumbling in an attempt to tighten the knot of his handkerchief.

"Oh, right. Well, if our time has come ... it's been nice knowing you, Loki."

"Don't talk to me again for the next five hours."

"Come on, move your asses." Levi cast irritated glances around, distributing them equally between the two grounded underlings and Hanje. "When I come back, I want to see this place shine."

"Captain, aren't you coming with us?" For the first time since they had reached Hanje's office, Mizuki showed some signs of serious concern for the task ahead. She evidently assumed that Levi would participate in that hopeless crusade; although his presence would result in an endless series of caustic comments about their work, the captain was still a valuable asset in the cleanup operation, especially considering that the absurd standards to be met were his own.

"You can forget about me stepping foot in there," he growled in response, moving away down the corridor and turning the corner.

"I feel pretty sorry for you two. We'll give you a hand." Amado indicated himself and Moblit with a nod.

"Please." With a sigh Mizuki retrieved the broom Levi had left leaning against the wall. "We all know you do this to keep an eye on us. Heaven forbid that while we're tidying up some drops fall on a very valuable document."

"They may be, but we really feel pity for two fools like you," Gunther said, drawing the attention of the group crowded in front of Hanje's office.

The entire Levi squad was approaching from the side of the hallway opposite to the one towards which the captain had walked away.

"Setting out to imitate the captain, what is wrong with you?" asked Oluo in a sarcastic tone, snapping his tongue.

Loki gave him a vaguely hallucinated look, uncertain whether to interpret that remark as a clever form of self-mockery towards himself or as an expression of genuine puzzlement. "Yeah. I wonder what ever came over us. It's obvious that no one in their right mind would do that."

"Come on, let's get to work! All together we'll be done in no time!" exclaimed Petra enthusiastically, clapping her hands.

"Yeah, we'd better get inside. Heaven forbid the captain retraces his steps and sees us. You guys should be grounded, if he finds out we are helping you there will be trouble," Eld observed and, retrieving his bucket and rags, entered the room.

"Ah, you're welcome! We'll be a little squeezed in, but we'll have fun!" Hanje nodded enthusiastically inviting the rest of the group to imitate Eld. "While you are working, I will also use the opportunity to present you with the latest plan I have devised to capture a giant. Basically..."

"Ugh," moaned Loki, lingering for a moment in the now deserted corridor. "Mizuki, you're really going to pay for this one."

Leaning against the wall just past the corner that marked the intersection of the two corridors, Levi sighed. He had become aware almost immediately of the presence of his team, which was hiding and awaiting his departure to join the brat and Loki in the impossible feat he had foisted on them, but he had nevertheless decided to play it cool.

He considered discipline to be an indispensable prerequisite for the keeping of a military organization and, more generally, for the healthy and proper development of an individual's personality; at the same time, however, he also believed that sometimes breaking the rules was inevitable, and even necessary in order to learn what rigidity and strictness were not suited to impart, namely that there are feelings to protect that are far more valuable than an order, and worth risking punishment for.

Besides, the more people who got their hands on the disaster vegetating in Hanje's office, the more chance there would be that the final outcome would prove acceptable.

Reflecting on that thought, Levi stepped away to sip a cup of tea before getting back to work.

.

.

June 849

An oppressive, humid heat had cloaked and subjugated Trost district for at least two weeks, and that day the temperature had risen by at least five degrees, turning the afternoon training with the device into a burning, no-holds-barred hell. After supper, the soldiers had taken refuge in the canteen, whose thick stone walls promised to provide some relief, all of them too exhausted by the heat to head into town to party, but at the same time willing to enjoy Saturday night in some way: some dripping with sweat, some fanning themselves with napkins, some with their heads splayed out on the table to soak up the coolness.

"I'm meltiiiiiiiiiiing," gasped Mizuki, who fell into the last category just described. To combat the nagging mugginess, in fact, she kept her cheek glued to the tabletop and had gathered her hair into a shapeless, lopsided bun that gave the impression a pumpkin had just grown on her head.

"I believe it. You've got that brat stuck to your back," Oluo commented scornfully, winking in the direction of Theo, who, standing on the bench, was actually grabbing her from behind with all his might.

"Knock it off with this brat here and brat there, Oluo. How many times do I have to tell you?" Petra gave him the usual glare, and it was only because her face was already drenched in sweat and she did not intend to make unnecessary gestures so as not to overheat further that she held back from giving him the usual slap on the back. After scolding her comrade, she checked on the reaction of the captain who, seated across from her, was intent on bringing a cup of tea to his lips, but he wore his usual impenetrable expression and appeared completely disinterested in the conversation.

For some time now, Levi had taken to derogating, now and then, from the habit of locking himself up in his room after dinner, so as not to be disturbed by the chatter of subordinates that went on until the stroke of curfew.

Petra had noticed it, of course, just as a good botanist who studies the object of his research with care and dedication notices the imperceptible changes in the seed, which slowly unfolds to become a sprout and then a plant.

The news, of course, cheered her up, as it offered her tasty opportunities to interact with him in a somewhat less formal setting.

At the same time, however, being the good observer that she was, she sensed with equal lucidity the reason for his change of habits.

Him joining them, in any case, did not happen every night, but only when bureaucratic tasks and his mood permitted it. On those occasions, the captain would settle down at his team's table, a little apart, and silently sip one cup of tea after another, staring into space, his eyes slightly half-closed. He would spend most of the evening this way, seemingly uninterested in the chatter of his subordinates; but that semblance of estrangement would be shattered as soon as Mizuki - the only one who dared to address him directly in those moments - asked him a question - usually stupid and irreverent - or when Mizuki herself made an impudent remark about him. Then, the captain would put down his cup and slowly turn his head toward her, as if he had been waiting for nothing else but that moment, and he would answer her or snap back at her abruptly, allowing himself to be drawn into a verbal duel that he was destined to lose.

Petra knew this. But she preferred to play dumb.

"Can anyone tell when you two are going to stop this? These little scenes are beginning to get repetitive."

"Don't say that, Gunther. They're funny to me." Gelgar, lying on the bench with the top buttons of his crumpled shirt undone and his legs open, chuckled.

"That's because you're druuuuuuuunk, Gelgaaaaaaaaaaaar."

"Shut up, kitty. Cats can't understand adults."

"Bleeeeee!"

"Bleeeeee!"

"Theo! You're sticking your tongue out at me, too! I can overlook the kitten, but from you I just didn't expect this. You're going to break my heart, you two. Is this how you treat old Gelgar?" The man reached out an arm to rifle a pinch on Mizuki's thigh, to which she reacted by listlessly waving a hand, not even coming close to hitting him.

Theo, noticing the man's gesture and detecting in it an invitation to come forward to protect his muse, raised a joyous growl and then pounced on Gelgar, who welcomed him into his arms laughing. Although he still did not speak, for some time now the child had become much more responsive to the stimuli of community life, and open even to anyone who was not Mizuki. Towards Gelgar, in particular, he showed almost as much adoration as he did for her, and the feeling seemed to be entirely mutual; when Mizuki found herself forced to stay in the infirmary or to leave HQ for some duty, the child always willingly accepted the temporary separation when he was looked after by Gelgar who, if free from military duties, invariably offered to keep the boy with him.

At that moment, Nifa approached the table at full speed. "Hey, everybody! Why so sluggish?"

"Something like forty degrees in the shade ring a bell?" muttered Gunther, who among those present seemed to be the most indisposed by the stifling heat.

"Niiiiifaaaaaaaa... I'm meltiiiiiiiiiiiing."

"Oh, come on. Is this really the problem? You poor people, I pity you. I don't suffer the heat at all!" exclaimed Nifa all cheerful and cool as a rose. She then began rummaging through the huge brown leather bag she carried over her shoulder, and pulling out envelopes of various sizes. "In any case, there is some correspondence for you. Well, especially for Captain Levi."

Saying so, Nifa, who was in charge of sorting out the correspondence addressed to Corps members, began to distribute letters and packages, and soon a pile of envelopes formed next to the little plate laid before Levi, who watched with a bored and indifferent look at the accumulating loot.

"'He's not humanity's strongest soldier for nothing.'" Gunther let a sigh escape, and at his side, Oluo stretched his neck to peer concupiscently at the pile of letters.

"Captain, as always you have a lot of admirers! It's wonderful that so many people recognize your value!" observed Petra with transport, clutching the letter received from her father to her chest.

"Say female admirers, my dear," Gelgar corrected her, unable to hold back a grin.

"Sunshineeeeeeee... cheateeeeeeeeear..."

"Mizuki, there's something for you, too. A letter from Willy Anderson..."

"Kitten, are you still giving that poor wretch false hope?"

"...and one from Jacqueline Tennison."

"Jackie!" With that exclamation, Mizuki pulled herself up sharply, reinvigorated and seemingly oblivious to the fact that, until a few moments before, she had been complaining that she was on the verge of melting, and took the envelope from Nifa's hands, who soon after took leave of the group with a trilling greeting.

"Oh, are you by any chance cheating on Lavinia?" asked Gunther, fanning himself with the letter he received from his sister.

"Don't talk nonsense."

Upon hearing the name Tennison, Levi's head snapped in Mizuki's direction, and his eyes thinned into two suspicious slits. "Are you in contact with that woman?" he asked, inserting himself into the conversation for the first time.

"Of course! We write each other once a week. She's a really cool woman!" replied Mizuki, naturally not noticing the captain's vaguely accusatory tone, and then dove into reading.

"Ouch, I smell a rat. We'll have to report back to Lavinia when she returns from that meeting in Mitras." After that comment, Gelgar reached out to pinch her thigh again, but Mizuki was so focused on the letter that she did not even notice.

"She can have other friends, but I can't date Lavinia. It doesn't seem fair." muttered Gunther, opening his letter.

"Face it, she wouldn't go for you anyway," said Oluo with an air of superiority; luckily for him, Petra was too engrossed in her father's letter to pay attention and to react to yet another bluster.

As an absorbed silence fell over the table as the soldiers present immersed themselves in reading their respective missives, Levi set his cup down in the saucer, pushed the letters addressed to him to the side with a hand, and fixed his gaze on Mizuki. Her sparkling eyes moved rapidly from left to right, devouring the words Jacqueline Tennison had penned and addressed to her.

What on earth could the two of them possibly have to say to each other?

A soldier and a noble.

A brat and a woman.

He could hardly believe that it could be an informal, and entirely disinterested relationship; there had to be something going on.

Perhaps Tennison had written because problems had arisen in the case against that dog Heather? Perhaps she had changed her mind about testifying on their behalf? Perhaps...

Suddenly, the brat's face began to change expression. Her eyebrows frowned, her mouth opened a little, her eyes widened in surprise, her ever-present finger sought out a strand of hair that had escaped from the bun and slowly began to fiddle with it. "Is it possible...?" he heard her murmur, looking increasingly puzzled. "Is it really possible?"

There, he knew it. A problem was looming on the horizon and, of course, the brat was about to get dragged into it right before his eyes.

Before Levi could apostrophize her to investigate the matter, however, Mizuki leaned in the direction of Petra, who sat beside her, and held out the letter to her. "Hey, Petra. You understand more about these things than I do, and maybe you know the answer. I haven't the faintest idea. I mean, do you think it's possible?"

Intrigued, the girl took the paper and began scrolling through the text from the spot Mizuki was pointing to. Almost immediately, her previously relaxed expression also became tense and amazed.

"Anatomically speaking, is it really possible to do such a thing?"

Petra opened her mouth as if to answer, but her voice seemed to fail her, so she just shook her head, stunned.

"I told you that Jackie knows her business. Someone who asks a question like that can only know her business, right? We have to listen to her advice if we want to win."

Even Petra?

Confronted with the capitulation of his steel-nerved subordinate, Levi could no longer contain himself. "Oi, you two. What's this all about?"

The two girls snapped their heads up from the paper and gave him a dumbfounded look. After that, the cheeks of both of them turned violently purple.

"Give me that letter, brat. Quickly. If there's a problem, I want to know right away."

"Captain..." murmured Petra, turning even redder and lowering her gaze. "I don't... I don't..."

Mizuki gazed at him gasping for a few moments, then clutched the letter to her chest with all her strength as if to hide it from Levi's sight. "Captain, you really disappointed me! I didn't think you were that kind of man! Aren't you ashamed?!"

The captain's eyes narrowed into two slits. "The letter, now."

"Trying to uncover a maiden's innermost secrets like that... you are a pervert!" cried Mizuki, her cheeks on fire.

At that magical call, the other three men sitting at the table turned their heads in interest.

"Oh, talk about dirty stuff!" Gunther dropped the letter he was reading on the table and rubbed his hands together interestedly.

"What wouldn't be anatomically possible, huh, kitten? Expose the problem to me." While still encircling with one arm an unhinged Theo, who was wriggling to escape his grip, Gelgar pulled himself to his seat and assumed a winking expression.

"You are... you don't have an ounce of sensitivity!" Mizuki, outraged, stood up, still clutching the letter to her chest. "Captain, you are the worst of all!"

"Come on, show it. I don't know who had the dumb idea of requesting sexual advice from you, but he must be really screwed up," Oluo answered her condescendingly, holding out a hand, while Gunther burst out laughing.

"Knock it off, Oluo! Everyone here knows you're a virgin like me! I, at least, am by choice and not out of necessity!" retorted Mizuki, loudly enough for several heated-looking soldiers seated at surrounding tables to turn their heads in their direction. "You have little to laugh about either, Gunther! You're a virgin yourself! And I believe it, with that chestnut-shaped head of yours!"

The two attacked turned as red as two tomatoes, while all around rose a roar of laughter and booing.

"Serves you right, jerks." sentenced Petra, still dark in the face, rising slowly. "Let's go, Mizuki. Nanaba will surely be able to help us with ... this matter, and away from here we can talk peacefully about whatever we like without unpleasant and inappropriate interruptions."

"Nanaba?" Gelgar straightened his head, alarmed. "And why would Nanaba know anything about sexual acts at the limits of the possible?"

Petra glowered at him. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"I mean, Nanaba ... she is a quiet girl, why would she ..."

Petra planted her hands on her hips and rose with a threatening and angry look in all her height. "Congratulations! Here are the usual comments from you men! What, a woman can't live her sexuality freely without coming across as a lowlife?!"

"But no, Petra ... I didn't mean ..."

"Way to go, Petra! Attack!" With a wild cry, Mizuki raised a fist towards the ceiling.

"Can't a woman have fun, unlike you men?"

"Get him!"

"Hey, kitty cat! You know why I made that comment!" stammered Gelgar, panicked, turning his head from one to the other of his enemies. "Why are you inciting her to slaughter!"

"It's obvious. Because it's fun, ain't it?"

"At least don't say it with that pure and innocent expression!"

Fortunately for Gelgar, Petra decided she had already wasted too much time insulting him because, after giving him one last condescending look, she walked away from the table followed closely by Mizuki. The three freshly disintegrated men lowered their heads as several amused giggles and caustic comments still arose around them. Although most of the bystanders had not been able to follow the entire conversation, they had nonetheless grasped scraps of phrases - and in particular, the words "virgin'", "chestnut-shaped head," and a slew of random insults - in a sufficient measure to have enough to mock them for at least a week.

"Why would Nanaba know such a thing?"

"Do I have a chestnut-shaped head? Do I really have a chestnut-shaped head, Oluo?"

"She called me a virgin out of necessity in front of everyone…."

Among them, the least touched by the incident was the very one whose initial misunderstanding had given rise to the tragedy. After realizing that Jaqueline Tennison had spoken to the brat about some bullshit, and that Liam Heather and the trial had nothing to do with it, Levi seemed to estrange himself from the tragicomic developments of the affair and reassumed his initial ascetic pose: his head turned forward, the five fingers of his hand holding the teacup raised in front of his lips, relatively uninterested in the drama unfolding around him.

The two girls returned to the table after about twenty minutes, with an indecipherable expression on their faces, under the variously anxious gaze of the three fellow soldiers and the apparently detached one of the captain.

Petra went straight to her seat, quietly, but Oluo and Gunther heard her mutter to herself as she walked past them, "So that's what becoming an adult means."

Mizuki, instead, stopped beside Gelgar and, after a long moment of hesitation, gave him a few taps on the back as if to encourage him not to give up.

"What...?" stammered the man, spasmodically trying to formulate a question that would allow him to get the answer he yearned for without at the same time permanently compromising his position.

"Don't you worry, Gelgar. Although it's hard, I will not give up! I will be your ally until the end!"

At that point Gelgar leapt to his feet. "I mean, who wants your pity! Don't pity me! Tell me rather what happened!"

"Remember that hope is the last to die, Gelgar..."

"KITTY!"

Just as the tone of the discussion was heating up, Mike - returning from a solitary walk in the garden - approached the table, curious about the source of so much hubbub. "What's all this fuss about?" he asked Levi, sitting with the now nearly empty cup of tea in his hand. "Aren't you going to intervene?" he added, genuinely astonished that his grumpy and impatient friend would tolerate without doing anything such a racket just a few feet away from him.

Levi, without answering the question, put down the empty cup and gave him a winking look. "Anatomically impossible, huh? Congratulations, Mike."

"What are you talking about?"

"I can't explain it to you now. There are too many brats with raging hormones around." Having said so, Levi stood up and, without adding a word, joined Gelgar and Mizuki, who were still immersed in a desperate one-way interrogation. As soon as he noticed the captain approaching, the man - immediately shushing himself and turning pale - took a step back and raised his open hands as if to justify himself. Levi, however, ignored him and, after grabbing Mizuki by the collar of her shirt, unceremoniously lifted her off the ground. "Why is there always a fuss when you're around?"

"Well, probably because..."

"I don't want an answer, brat."

"Ah, that was a rhetorical question. You should be clearer when you ask one."

"Do you want to hear another one?"

"No..."

"The pavement in the meeting office on the third floor needs to be washed."

"This is not a question..."

"No, indeed." Still holding her up off the floor like a sack of potatoes, Levi began to carry her by weight towards the exit, and immediately Theo leapt to the floor and, scampering off, set off in their pursuit, under the gaze of the entire canteen, who was committed to holding back the burst of laughter that such a sight aroused but that would certainly prove unwelcome to the captain.

"Captain, but it's hoooooot... do you want me to melt?"

"If you didn't melt by making a hellish racket, you won't melt by cleaning either."

"Can you at least put me dooooooown?"

"Forget it. You tried to run away yesterday."

"Deeeeeemoooooooon..."

Mike failed to catch the last lines of that absurd conversation between Levi and Mizuki, overwhelmed by the soldiers' roar of laughter, which erupted liberally as soon as the captain got far enough away to be out of earshot. Furrowing his brow, thoughtful, and barely wrinkling his nose, the very tall captain sniffed the air in the spot where, until moments before, humanity's strongest soldier sat apparently and relativelydisinterested.

Levi, for some time now, had a smell a little different than usual.

Sweeter, softer and at the same time penetrating.

It was not the first time that the scent of one of his fellow soldiers had changed, with variations that, however imperceptible, did not escape Mike's superfine nose. The reasons behind such changes could be the most varied and sometimes difficult to imagine, but in the particular case of Levi, humanity's second strongest soldier did not harbor the slightest doubt.

Oh, yeah. For us old guys, surrounding ourselves with youth is a real mood booster, he thought with satisfaction.

After that, he took his leave from the four soldiers still left at the table - who, he noted incidentally, seemed to be in shock and exhausted as if they had just returned from a scouting - and prepared to join his little, unmentionable secret to put into practice something anatomically impossible.