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

14. Chapter 13

Chapter 13: I see signs now all the time that you're not dead, you're sleeping. I believe in anything that brings you back home to me - part 3

Bloc Party - Signs

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Kenny Ackerman was bored.

His tedium, unfortunately, was nothing new. Anyone else, by now, would have succumbed to the sad fate of human beings: a life that is too long, days that follow one another ever the same, interrupted only by brief and ephemeral moments of exhilaration, originating from extemporaneous novelties that would all too soon turn into trivial habits, only to be forgotten. But he did not. He had not the slightest intention of bowing to normality and the dulling of his senses and mind, and, true to that principle, he acted accordingly: every decision he made was aimed at a single, fundamental purpose, which was to make his own existence fun and exciting, to chase away the tedium that plagued him, whatever the price he had to pay to achieve a thrill that would make him feel alive.

Although he had never wavered in that granitic conviction of his, Kenny Ackerman was nevertheless getting bored that late November evening; even more, he was getting very bored. Sometimes even the wildest and deepest passions must reckon with luck, which had lately dealt him a very bad hand of cards to play in order to entertain himself acceptably.

Bringing his glass of liquor to his lips, Kenny let his gaze wander over the crowded inn. Men and women sat in too many at the wooden tables scattered around the room, clutching or sitting on each other, intoxicated by alcohol and heat, and all apparently engaged in some activity that absorbed their attention entirely and satisfied them: there were those who sang, those who played cards honestly and unsuccessfully, those who played by cheating and amassing the fortunes lost by the pure of heart, those who kissed, and those who, with much more audacity, rubbed up against a member of the opposite sex like an animal.

Kenny, seated in the table reserved for him and his team on the right side of the bar, out of the hustle and bustle, watched that cross-section of humanity go wild with the stolid belief that alcohol, sex or gambling could confer some meaning to their miserable existences.

The nights in Orvud's liveliest tavern were like that.

Frantic, sultry, confusing and always, unfailingly, dramatically the same.

Suddenly, the door of the inn opened: a hooded figure made its entrance and, with confident step, walked toward the bar, holding its head down.

Here was a stupid outsider who had not informed himself about how things worked in Orvud before setting foot there. The Gendarmerie did not like people walking around with their faces covered after a certain hour because that would force the patrolling soldiers to stop passers-by whose identities they intended to verify, an excessive burden, which added unacceptably - as one of the captains who had initiated that practice had called it with disdain - to the already pressing duties of the overworked and overtime-stressed gendarmes. Thus, an unwritten, but more valid and enforced rule than the official laws had become established in Orvud: after dark, one could walk on public land only barefaced.

Formally, Kenny and his team were affiliated with the Gendarmerie, and in particular with the infamous and mysterious Central Department, but they dealt with matters of a different caliber than going around peeling under people's hoods; they would make nosy people who got too close to thorny matters disappear into thin air. Captain Kenny Ackerman of the Gendarmerie Corps, therefore, cared less than nothing about the stupid stranger who walked confidently toward the bar, blatantly violating the unwritten law of Orvud. In the inn, however, there were a number of officers present who, as soon as they got away from the bottle or a woman and noticed him, would be none too pleased, and then there would be a commotion that might, perhaps, distract Kenny from his tedium for a few minutes.

"Good evening," the hooded figure greeted with a delicate voice the innkeeper - a big man of massive build, covered with dark villous hair - who peered at it grimly from across the bar wiping a glass with a greasy rag. "I..."

"In my tavern ya come in bareheaded," the man interrupted her dryly, and spat on the floor. "I don't want any trouble. If ya don't like it, that's the door."

The stranger's shoulders sagged slightly, as if it had just sighed; then it gently lowered the hood, throwing it back. The darting yellow flames that burned in the flashlights hooked to the walls illuminated a delicate, childlike face framed by short strands of curly hair, escaped from the low ponytail that disappeared into the meanderings of the cloak.

Kenny raised an eyebrow.

The world had really begun to turn backwards, if mothers no longer taught brats that you absolutely must not go out alone at night if you don't want to make nasty encounters. The frail-looking child, however, did not appear frightened at all; rather, she exuded a serene, calm confidence from her eyes, which glowed with golden gleams in the torchlight.

"A beer, please," she then said, not flinching at the glare her interlocutor gave her.

"Say, are ya old enough to drink?" grunted the innkeeper, slamming the glass hard down on the shelf and throwing the rag, which slipped to the floor at an unspecified spot behind him.

"I'm eighteen, almost nineteen, to be precise," replied she, a little piqued at the insinuation.

A brat, indeed.

He was in really bad shape if even the appearance of a young girl with obvious cognitive deficits appeared to him as a splendid opportunity for entertainment.

The innkeeper filled the freshly dried glass from one of the casks embedded in the wall and unceremoniously slammed it down in front of the brat. "That's five," he informed her, without removing his huge hand from the cup, with the air of someone who would not let go of the bundle until she had paid what was due.

The brat interpreted the gesture without difficulty; after rummaging through a saddlebag she wore around her neck, she let two jingling coins slip onto the counter. "That's ten," she announced, as the innkeeper retrieved them without attempting to hide his surprise, convinced as he was that the little girl did not have a penny on her and would start whining to soften him up. "You can keep it all if you answer a few questions."

Well, except for the rather questionable choice of addressing so formally a dull giant like that, it seemed that the brat knew her business.

The innkeeper assumed a suspicious demeanor and, after taking a practiced bite of the two coins to assay their consistency, slipped them into the pocket of his diry pants. "Let's hear them," he then said, without completely divesting himself of a suspicious expression.

The brat pushed the glass to the side, with the flat side of her hand, trying to touch it as little as possible, and leaned forward. "I'm looking for one person; maybe two, but I'm not sure. I'd like to know if they happened to frequent your tavern recently..." She bit her lip, and with one finger searched for a curly lock, with which she began to fiddle. "Above all, they might have passed through Orvud in July this year, during the harvest festival held in Ghent, you know?"

The innkeeper didn't even try to hide what he thought of the request: he huffed, incredulous and vaguely exasperated, shook his head and spat on the ground again; then with plump, broken-nailed, dirty fingers he caressed his trouser pocket, as if to remind himself why he hadn't kicked her out yet. "I get it. So? Who would they be, these two?" he growled gruffly and menacingly, bringing his fist down on the counter without warning. "I don't have time to waste."

She did not seem at all impressed or intimidated by that display of gratuitous violence. "The names I don't know; rather, I know the real ones, but I'm not sure they're still using them," she began to say, with deliberate calm and a mischievous twinkle in her golden eyes, almost as if she found it amusing to get on the man's nerves.

"And without names how do ya think I can do?"

The brat ignored the innkeeper's irate outburst. "'These are two childhood friends whom I haven't seen for four years. I will describe what they looked like then, and how I think they have grown up in this time frame..."

Gone now from the man's face was any trace of reticence or impatience, feelings that had given way to genuine and utter bewilderment. "You're nuts. Did ya really spend your money on this?"

Yep, Kenny agreed, and he had already changed his mind again about the brat. That one there must have been suffering from some severe form of idiocy, because only an idiot could have thought the beast would be able to answer such a question. Even if the guys she was looking for had really passed through the inn, there was no hope that he would remember them; it already seemed a remarkable and unrepeatable miracle that the guy didn't forget to close his pants zipper every morning.

She shrugged her shoulders. "It's my money, and it's important, to me. So..."

"Let go!"

The woman's shout rose suddenly, ripping through the cheerful chatter of the customers; for a moment, the conversations and gestures of those present froze, an initiated sentence interrupted, the hand lowering a card remained suspended in midair.

The brat had turned around with a quick jerk, of which many soldiers would not have been capable of at all, and looked at the center of the room petrified.

"Come on, honey, don't be like that!"

Then the patrons decided that the scene was neither worthy of their attention nor interesting enough to justify an interruption of their pleasant nighttime activities. The paper was dropped, the sentence ended, and laughter returned to haunt the air.

And how could anyone blame them? A good-looking maid harassed by one of the officers of the Gendarmerie could hardly be definite news there in Orvud.

The brat, on the other hand, remained motionless, her eyes fixed on the hand of the soldier - a gendarme with a potbelly and a two-day-long beard, aged between forty and fifty - harpooned on the slender wrist of a young maid who tried unsuccessfully to wriggle out of the way.

"Hey, little girl! I told ya I don't want any trouble in my tavern!" The innkeeper pounded his fist on the bar again. "Mind your own business, and leave Vice-Captain Jones alone, or your information can be shoved up your ass! Do ya have any idea who that guy is? The officer who runs the archive, that's it! That guy could make trouble for me! And I don't want any trouble. Do I make myself clear?"

The threat had its effect, for the girl shrugged and turned her back to the room. Her disturbed look and tooth-tortured lip, however, suggested that she had no intention of letting it go. "Sir," she said in fact, raising her head towards the innkeeper. "The girl is one of your maids, and that creep is harassing her. Shouldn't you help her?"

"No, I really think not." The beast spat for the third time within ten minutes. "She's asking for it. She's a constant source of trouble. She's been fooling around, and these are the results."

Kenny barely restrained an amused giggle: from his position he enjoyed a privileged view of her hands, which the brat had clenched into fists so tightly that she dug her nails into her palms.

How pathetic she was.

"Come on, let's go for a walk outside, sweetheart!"

Pathetic her, the maid, and all the weak beings who breathed the air of the world.

"Please let go of me... I'm married..."

Forced to crawl on the floor, to breathe quietly, to avoid too sudden movements, praying that predators and masters would not notice them and decide to crush them under the heel of their shoe.

Do you feel helpless, brat? This is what it feels like to be a worm. How does weakness taste?

"Do you think your husband cares? He knows you're a slut anyway. Everybody knows..."

Therefore, never to find himself on the side of the crushed and defeated, Kenny Ackerman had only one faith, he believed in only one truth: strength.

And already he was losing interest in that dull brat, as a milky patina slipped back over the surrounding reality...

"Someone help me..."

Until an unexpected curse ripped through it.

"Ah, damn it!"

It all happened very quickly. The brat turned abruptly, lowering her hood over her head again, and, in bringing herself to the center of the room, she passed close to the table where Kenny sat, sprawled out; the man perfectly saw her hand, with its palm marked by four reddish half-moons, lovingly caressing and grasping the handles of two serving knives abandoned on the table by his subordinates.

"Hey, you! Leave her now!"

The entire room held its breath, and at least thirty pairs of eyes turned astonished and indignant on the petite figure facing Vice-Captain Jones of the Gendarmerie Corps. The man in question, one hand already resting on the doorknob of the entrance and the other clawed at the arm of the weeping girl, turned slowly. "I beg your pardon? I don't think I heard you right."

Kenny straightened his back, like a predator who has just caught the scent of the unsuspecting fawn intent on watering at the stream. Well, maybe a few drops of amusement could still be extracted from that cocky brat who was fiddling with adult toys. Yes, though a bit trite, the beating and perhaps the rape of a defeated one posing as a hero could still bring him some pleasure.

"You heard very well. The young lady clearly expressed her wish to be left alone, and it must be respected."

The soldier let his slimy gaze slide all the way down the brat's figure, perhaps considering a substitution between her and the maid, but the scant merchandise glimpsed beneath the cloak convinced him that this was not a convenient exchange at all. "What if I refuse?" he asked in an amused and defiant tone, grabbing the maid by the waist and holding her close.

"Leave her." A dry, icy order, phrased in a measured, pragmatic tone, and devoid of any trace of fear. That simple word echoed through the room like the most terrible and presumptuous of insults: several men seated at the tables drew back their torsos, outraged, and the officer's two subordinates sprang to their feet to stand alongside their superior. "I'd rather not cause a commotion, because if a certain grumpy man learned that I got into trouble, it would mark the end of my hearing apparatus, but ... I won't repeat myself a third time."

No one fully grasped the meaning of the second part of the speech; what was clear to all, however, was that the brat was challenging Vice-Captain Jones in a far from veiled way.

The officer, at the very least, interpreted the speech in this way and decided to answer with a provocation, for he grabbed the shivering maid's bottom with a grin.

Kenny Ackerman, who was enjoying the spectacle already somewhat bored, was perhaps the only one who managed to reconstruct what happened: the brat's left arm rising, a knife twirling with surgical precision, grazing the man's temple and then sticking in the wooden wall behind him.

The only sound in the room, for a long moment, was the vibration of the blade planted in the wall.

Then the brat, in a clear, calm voice, announced, her hand already high above her head again, a blade glinting arrogantly between her fingers, "Just to be clear: I didn't miss you by mistake. If you don't let go of her now, you old pig, I'll get you this time. It's only a bread knife, but I don't think it would be pleasant to have it in your eye. Do you agree with me?"

On the officer's face followed a rapid parade of emotions: fury, indignation, bewilderment, fear. A very slight and probably deliberate movement of his enemy's arm awakened him, snatching a gasp from him, and what prevailed in him was the terror of losing an eye. The soldier pushed away the maid, who stumbled and collapsed to the ground. "Catch her!" he uttered, in a falsetto cry that sounded like parody, pointing a trembling finger at the brat. "Don't let her get away!"

Kenny had risen quickly to follow the progress of the clash, thrilled as he had not been in a long time, and saw it.

The cocky grin that was painted on her lips.

The body that assumed a fighting posture.

And then the eyes that darted nimbly around embracing the room, the enemies, absorbing every detail that could lead her to victory.

Eyes that no longer had the consistency of water in a fountain struck by the orange rays of the rising sun.

Eyes the color of blood.

It was a moment, and then he lost them, because the brat had sprinted to the nearest table to grab a carafe of red wine.

A normal person would have believed that he had taken a blunder, that he had fallen victim to an optical illusion originated by the languishing flames of the flashlights, unable to light the room. Kenny Ackerman would have thought so, too, except that he had crossed similar eyes before and lost himself in them.

It had happened only once, many years before, but he would never forget it.

No, he would never forget the gaze of the strongest man he had ever met, kissed by fate that had gifted him with a power more frightening than that of Kenny himself and Uri Reiss.

The memory of that man's eyes, weeping tears of blood, was indelibly etched in his mind, and would haunt him until the day he died.

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March 825 - somewhere in the inner territories of Wall Sina.

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Kenny Ackerman entered the shadowy room without making a sound. He was used to moving like a ghost, to surprise his victims from behind before tracing on the tender flesh of their necks a crescent moon that brought death and oblivion.

The man slept in the armchair placed in the wall opposite the door, between two open windows from which a warm breeze penetrated, a sign heralding the coming of an early spring. He rested still and relaxed, his legs stretched out in front of him, his long, gaunt fingers joined in his lap, and his head bent to the side. On the whole, he resembled a puppet abandoned in a disheveled and grotesque pose, with no more strings to give him the breath of life.

The young man's brief and concise conversation with Uri Reiss, which lasted roughly half an hour, had just ended, and now he was regaining his strength after the long journey he had endured to reach that place, located at the far ends of the world.

His presence was suffocating. It impregnated the walls, intoxicated the plants, numbed the senses of living beings. It was everywhere, and it was nowhere. Even without him being awake or doing anything, the man's totalizing aura imposed itself on the surrounding reality, crushing it, bending it, shaping it to its own liking, imposing its will on it

Kenny Ackerman possessed the instincts of an animal, and he distinctly sensed the power emanating from the sleeping figure.

But Kenny Ackerman was also a man who would not be intimidated by anything.

His grip on the serrated knife tightened.

All that power, all that strength, packed into a body made of blood and flesh... and he would be the one to disperse it, to take possession of it, killing its reckless possessor who, sinning in pride, had let his guard down.

"Good evening, Mr. Ackerman."

Although the young man had greeted him in a low tone of voice, almost a whisper, those words rumbled through the room powerful, deafening, filling his ears.

Then came astonishment.

How had he noticed him?

He had not made the slightest noise as he had entered the room, and the young man had not moved a single muscle, maintaining the same relaxed pose and drooping eyelids over his eyes set in his drawn, fatigue-scarred face.

"I have very good ears," he said, as if he had read his mind. "You are Reiss's bodyguard, aren't you? I recognize the way you breathe."

Kenny collected himself, shaking off the heavy feeling instilled in him by the man's vibrant voice. Since the prey had become aware of him, all he had left to do was to play it straight. He dropped the knife, moved forward a few steps and drew his gun, aiming the barrel at the center of the figure's chest, so motionless it reminded him of a statue. "You got it. It's really me. Since you like to guess, do you also know why I'm here?"

The first movement that testified the presence of life in the body abandoned in the armchair: the young man's lips stretched imperceptibly. "It's obvious. To try to kill me."

Kenny indulged in a disturbing laugh, devoid of all mirth. "Wrong. I'm not here to try to kill you, I'm here to kill you."

"I don't see a big difference there."

"Oh, no. There's all the difference in the world." Certain that he had the situation under control, Kenny began walking from one end of the room to the other, along an invisible line parallel to the chair, continuing to hold his prey at gunpoint. "You know, Uri says you'are strong. Even stronger than he is. That makes me curious, you know? It's not every day stuff to meet someone who boasts such a presentation."

"I see. That's what you're after, then. Strength."

Kenny suppressed a fit of annoyance. He was not at all amused that this guy - with his eyes closed, and without their having even exchanged two words before then - had grasped the innermost motions of his soul in that way, and was turning it inside out, bringing its secrets to light, like a child who, after lifting a boulder planted in the ground, exposes its teeming universe of worms and other beasts beneath. "It doesn't matter, does it? It only matters that you fight with me."

"What a person wants always matters." The young man spoke slowly and without excitement, as if he did not have a gun pointed at his chest at that moment and they were exchanging pleasant remarks about the weather. "And I don't want to fight with you."

"You're strong, and you don't fight?"

"I don't like violence."

"You may not like it, but you don't have much choice, from what I can tell. Don't you think?"

Kenny just raised the gun and fired, the bullet crossed the distance between them with a whistle and penetrated the padded back of the chair, an inch from the man's shoulder. He, however, did not even show signs of noticing, and his exasperating calm contributed to further irritating Kenny. With all of himself, he realized that he wanted to rip away his haughty confidence, and erase the self-control he was flaunting.

"I'm afraid our positions on this subject are divergent, Mr. Ackerman."

"Fine. Then I'll kill you." Kenny advanced another step and, this time, aimed at his opponent's head. "Any last words?"

"I would have no problem letting you kill me, you know? I don't have much time left anyway, maybe a couple of months." For the first time, the man's voice cracked, an indefinite note of melancholy penetrated the wall of solid stone of which he was composed, but it was not Kenny's threats that had caused the change, but rather the thought of what he was leaving behind. This, too, infuriated him, for it forced him to acknowledge his own helplessness, absolute and without remedy, in the face of a man who had fully accepted his mortal fate. "However..."

"So, if that's the case..." Kenny disengaged the safety catch, his hand trembling with rage. He wanted to get that man and his impressive strength out of his sight; an inner strength that had nothing to do with war skills, and rather contained an invisible, warm, quality projected toward himself and his own demons, the existence of which could only be sensed and could not be empirically proven, nor scratched by a measly gun.

"... there is still something fundamental I must do, before I die."

"I feel sorry for you, then."

"For that reason, I just can't let you kill me now."

"Like I said: I really feel sorry for you."

Kenny pulled the trigger, but nothing happened.

Furious, incredulous, impatient, he pulled it again. It was not jammed; the shot inserted in the barrel was just waiting to be propelled at insane speed toward its victim to tear into tender flesh.

But nothing happened again and again.

"It's useless, Mr. Ackerman. You cannot kill me."

"We'll see about that!" Kenny angrily threw the unusable gun to the ground. "My hands are enough for something like this!"

"It's useless," repeated the young man, and those two words came down on Kenny like an axe. Suddenly, he knew, felt deep down in his bones - against all logic, all appearance, and all his own certainties - that he was right. "You can't kill me..."

It was then that he opened his eyes, and in the thick darkness of the room appeared two discs as red as the blood that so many times Kenny Ackerman had seen gushing from the throats of his enemies, cut by his hand.

They appeared out of nowhere, yet it was as if they had always existed, as if they had hovered in the room from the moment he had first set foot in it.

The air, the sound, the smells, every trace of life were sucked toward those two circles of blood. Kenny tried to move, to oppose the overwhelming power emanating from them, but in vain.

"... Because you are already trapped in my illusion."

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Itachi Uchiha.

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When Kenny Ackerman emerged from his memories, two gendarmes had already been knocked out.

One had had the contents of the wine jug thrown in his face and, in the blindness that followed, had been kicked in the lower parts; to the other, the still dripping jug landed on his knee, snatching a groan of pain from him. He fell pathetically to the ground.

The brat attacked not to injure, but to gain the door and escape.

Deprived of his henchmen and deeply humiliated, Vice-Captain Jones drew his sword from its scabbard and lunged at her.

Bad move, to draw such a bulky weapon in a cramped environment and against an opponent as agile as an eel.

The brat, in fact, dodged the lunge without difficulty, bending and passing close to the man's legs. The petite body shuddered, and the flicker of his eyes - again or perhaps always amber - suggested to Kenny that she had just glimpsed, in the movement, something that had caught her imagination.

Then the second striking event of the evening occurred.

With a sharp flick of her wrist and a deft movement of her fingers, the girl rotated the knife in a twist that only two people in the world knew: Kenny himself and...

Levi.

The knife snapped upward, thunderbolting, and danced so quickly across the soldier's clothes that no one realized what she had done, until Officer Jones's pants, after a tug from the brat, slipped to the floor and he, with the help of a nudge, did likewise, tripping over the garment that had tangled around his legs.

A chorus of shouts and whistles arose from the entire room.

The brat burst into crystalline laughter and gained the door. "That'll teach you, you old pig!"

"TAKE HER!" ranted Officer Jones, red in the face, to his still haggard and aching subordinates. "Get that little bitch and bring her to me. I want to skin her alive!"

As the two poor men set off in hot pursuit and the electrified onlookers began to comment on the incident, Kenny returned to the table to retrieve his coat abandoned on the back of his chair. "Caven," he said urgently, turning to his vice-captain. "When those three idiots are done making fools of themselves, take them to an alley and beat the crap out of them."

Traute Caven, a young and attractive blond woman, raised her head. She didn't change her expression, nor did she dare contradict the chief's order, but in her eyes Kenny read a certain perplexity, a sign that not even the most valiant of his subordinates had noticed the little sleight of hand played by the brat.

No, no one except him - Jones, busy pulling up his trousers, least of all - seemed to have noticed that she, in attending so devotedly to the pants, had not only popped the button of the garment to expose the man's graces to public ridicule; but she had cut, above all, the thin string from which hung in plain sight the bunch of keys to the city archive offices entrusted to the control of that idiot.

She had taken what she was interested in, and at the same time created a diversion that would draw the general attention away from her real goal.

"To be fooled like that by a brat... what a shame. And now they're running after her, as if she's gonna be out there waiting for them. Someone like that has been gone for at least ten minutes already. It's normal for people not to respect the Gendarmerie if they witness such scenes, and it's also quite unpleasant to be associated with such idiots. It annoys me, so teach them a lesson about how things go in the world."

A flash of understanding lit up Traute Caven's very clear, almost discolored blue eyes. "'Aye, aye. And you?"

A grin distorted Kenny's features. "Me? Oh, I'm going to have a nice chat with the little brat."

"How do you know where she ran off to?"

He heard Caven's question despite having already moved away from the table, but ignored it. As much as he esteemed her and had made it a point to train her so that she would be his reliable right-hand man, that certainly did not mean that he would reveal to her all the tricks of the trade.

Of course he knew where that amazing and daring brat was hopping at that moment.

Where else could she have gone, considering that she was searching for two missing persons and was in possession of the keys to the city's archives?

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After casting a circumspect glance down the dark street to make sure no one was passing by, Mizuki slipped out of the sad gray brick building and carefully closed the door behind her. With quick steps, she reached the sidewalk and walked toward her destination, whistling a cheerful tune that the old man with the guitar had taught her, and affecting a relaxed, innocent gait, as if she had just visited her ailing grandmother, and not raided, illegally, a Gendarmerie building.

When, in the course of the struggle, she had found the bunch of keys attached to Officer Jones's pants in front of her face, she had said to herself: why not, since I'm already here, bent over level with this idiot's ass and holding a knife? And so, she had cut the string and seized the precious loot. Fortunately, the object had turned out to be just what she had hoped for-that is, the passkey to access the offices that housed the city archives.

Mizuki never paid too much attention when his fellow soldiers talked about work or, which was the same thing, insulted the gendarmes; however, by one of those inexplicable and fortuitous combinations of fate, her mind had registered the information about the kind of documents kept and activities carried out by the Gendarmerie Corps soldiers who served at the city archives: missing reports, lawsuits, files on citizens labeled as subversives or tax evaders, and, above all, the list of people entering the city.

Too juicy a call to ignore.

Yet, to her surprise, the unofficial trip to the archives had borne fruit other than what she had expected, but just as startling and, she hoped, useful. The fingers of her left hand brushed against the wrapper tucked into the waistband of her pants, and a shiver caught her. No, she had not found the information she had tried to pry out of all the innkeepers and hoteliers of Ghent first and Orvud later; but the documents she carried with her constituted valuable material nonetheless, which in Erwin Smith's hands could have turned into their trump card against the mysterious organization.

Around the forefinger of her right hand, Mizuki absentmindedly twirled the set of keys taken from Officer Jones; suddenly, due to a seemingly involuntary jerk of her finger, the object flew through the air and, after drawing a perfect parabola, plunged into a manhole.

"Oops," chanted Mizuki with a grin. "How careless of me."

No sooner had she uttered those words, however, than two arms appeared from the depths of the alley she was walking by, grabbed her, and dragged her with them into the darkness.

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Of all the annoyances of adult life, the two that Kenny Ackerman hated most were definitely boredom and waiting.

He was not a patient person, Kenny Ackerman. When he had to wait for something, he was bored out of his mind, which invariably put him in a bad mood.

Yet, that evening, lurking on the roof of a building swept by an icy sharp wind, Kenny whistled baldly, waiting patiently for the propitious moment to pounce on the prey he was stalking. He had followed the brat to the archive with plans to have some fun with her as soon as she re-emerged from the office. With any luck, he thought, he would even be able to discover the identities of the people she was looking for by consulting the documents he was going to steal; in any case, he would kindly drag her somewhere nearby, to a place where they could have a little chat. He knew the area, and it was chock full of abandoned little places that would suit her.

By now he had discarded the idea that the brat was somehow related to Itachi Uchiha and endowed with the same, frightening eye power. They looked nothing alike, those two, either physically or character-wise: the little girl had ash-blond hair and golden eyes, and she appeared helpless and clueless, to the point that she hadn't even noticed that she had a pursuer on her tail. Kenny concluded that he had made a mistake in the tavern. However, he hadn't imagined at all the sudden gesture with which she had flipped the knife, and of that - namely, the identity of the one who had taught her the trick - he could at least ask her to account for it.

Before he could put his plan into action, however, the third out-of-the-ordinary event of the evening occurred.

The brat, having slipped out of the office, headed at a brisk pace toward the center of town, but no sooner had she passed the height of the first alleyway than a pair of arms grabbed her; encircling her shoulders with one hand and plugging her mouth with the other, they dragged her into the shadows, not without some difficulty, since she had taken to wriggling like a fury.

"Keep still, you fool!"

As soon as she heard those less-than-kind words, the brat's body movements froze.

"And stop fucking drooling! How disgusting!"

She grabbed the hand pressing on her mouth and moved it without meeting any resistance. "Captain!" she exclaimed in amazement, wriggling out of his grip, then turning away.

Levi, thought Kenny Ackerman instead with a grin, excited despite his difficulty in accepting the incredible series of events that had turned a placid, dull, suicidal evening into that crackling cauldron of news.

How many years had it been, since he had last seen his grandson? The valiant captain of the Survey Corps, known to most as humanity's strongest soldier. And now he was there, in a fetid little street, kidnapping brats.

"What are you doing here?!"

"I'm the one who's asking you that."

"And more importantly, is that the way to reveal yourself? I was about to headbutt you on the nose! "

Levi pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, and took to rubbing his hand to remove the girl's drool. "Tsk, you just had to try and do it again."

Again? I haven't taught him anything at all, if he's letting a little girl put her hands all over him.

The two faced each other in silence for a few moments. He wouldn't have been able to explain why, but Kenny had a feeling that both of them - Levi and the brat - were on edge, not because of a hypothetical outside assailant, but because of each other. The girl stood with her back leaning against the wall and arms folded across the chest, as if trying to create a barrier between herself and the world or, more precisely, between herself and the man in front of her; Levi, on the other hand, had moved a few steps away, intending to put some physical distance between them.

"So? Are you going to spontaneously tell me what the fuck you were doing inside a gendarmerie corps office in the middle of the night, or do I have to convince you to spill the beans the hard way?"

There, now Kenny recognized the fruit of his teachings.

She seriously weighed the two options, bringing her hand to one ear thoughtlessly and for no apparent reason. "I was investigating the kidnappings of the people brought to Tiburtina," she then said, putting her survival before the secrecy of the task.

"In this office? How the hell did you get in?"

The girl cleared her throat, and lied very naturally. "Earlier I was having a beer in a tavern, and I heard some soldiers talking about their work at the archive. When they got up from the table, I noticed under the chair a forgotten set of keys, and so ... in short, since I was here to investigate, I took advantage of it."

Levi did not seem at all convinced by the explanation that he had been fed - he had always displayed a shocking but useful skill at sniffing out lies, that guy - but he did not elaborate further.

"What about the guards inside?"

"They should teach those fools in the Gendarmerie Corps that you don't drink from a liquor bottle that just appeared out of nowhere. They'll sleep until morning."

The captain's brow furrowed, but a flash of amusement flashed in his glacial eyes, which he hastened to suppress so as not to loosen the grip of interrogation. "Did you find anything?"

"Yes." The brat lifted a flap of the cloak, and pointed with her hand to the file tucked in the waistband of her pants.

"All we needed was for you to go about stealing official documents."

"It's not stealing, it's borrowing. And they will stay with the family, since I want to hand them over to the commander."

Levi let out a deep sigh, and ran a hand over his half-closed eyelids, a gesture Kenny remembered he used to make when he was still a brat. In fact, he noted incidentally, he had not changed all that much since the last time he had seen him, especially as far as height was concerned; even his gaze had remained the same: icy, sharp, old and tired despite his young age. Now, however, in the gray irises there was intermittently a faint glow, which had the flavor of hope and future, and which shone more brightly when his eyes rested on the brat.

"You, rather. What are you doing here?"

"Trying to keep some fool from dragging us all to the gallows." Now he was the one who was lying; Kenny noticed this immediately, too, for he had learned to subdue his lies as soon as he had decided to take care of him, back in 823, so as to nip in the bud any deplorable tendency of a still bratty Levi to hide the truth from him.

You've always had rather questionable tastes, boy, and your preferences in women confirm that. Did you really pick a flat, problematic and even liar brat?

"I didn't mean here in the alley," emphasized the brat, pointing a finger at the ground to reinforce the point. "I want to know what you're doing in Orvud."

A cloud of anger clouded the metallic clarity of Levi's eyes. "You disappear into thin air for a week after the mess that happened during the expedition, and you even have the guts to ask me what I'm doing here?" he growled, in a low, controlled tone of voice at odds with the storm that lit up his gaze. "I note with pleasure that of all Shindo's sensible remarks, not a single one of them has entered that stubborn head of yours."

The brat gasped and lowered her head, evidently Levi's words had struck a chord. "I didn't disappear into thin air. Commander Erwin knew where I was headed, even though I asked him not to tell you. Evidently..."

"Erwin kept his mouth shut," cut Levi short, dryly. "That's not the point. Let's drop it for the time being: it's cold, we'd better go back to your accommodation and talk about it there."

"..." She tergiversed, rubbing the dusty ground of the road with the toe of her boot.

"What's that shitty expression? You have an accommodation, don't you?"

"Yes, yes," she hastened to answer, hurriedly, and raising her hands open in front of her chest as if to curb the vibrant anger that could be sensed in the man's reprimand. "We can go, but I warn you: I don't think you'll like it, so start preparing yourself mentally."

Levi glowered at her and clucked his tongue, but again that glow unknown to Kenny Ackerman twinkled on his nephew's face, making him almost unrecognizable. "'I don't like most of your tricks, brat, but I've gotten used to them by now.'"

Kenny Ackerman listened distractedly to the crystalline laughter that flowed from the girl's lips, and watched thoughtfully as the preys - which had grown from a small one to two - walked down the alley and onto the main street. He followed them with his gaze, stood up and prepared to get on the strange pair's tail.

The bigwigs in the government had not yet given orders to deal with the men of the ResSurveyearch Corps, but during the course of the last meeting Kenny had been given a clear signal that he should stand ready to act at any moment. Their intentions were obvious: to exploit as far as possible the incredible abilities of that bunch of dreamers and idealists to regain the Wall Maria territories, and to get rid of them as soon as they got too close to truths that had to remain secret at all costs.

The time when the threat to peace posed by the Survey Corps should have been eliminated with a firm hand and without mercy, however, had not yet come, and no matter how confident he was in his own abilities, Kenny Ackerman was no fool: he would never have been able to eliminate Levi painlessly and cleanly, and if he had attacked him now a confrontation in the middle of the city would have ensued, an eventuality he thought wise to avoid for the time being, even if it meant giving up a face-to-face meeting with the brat as long as his nephew was around. Nothing, however, prevented him from following them to investigate some more.

If not to discover the brat's intentions, at least to understand more about their wacky bond.

A wry smile distorted Kenny Ackerman's features.

One could never know when such information might come in handy.

.

"What does this mean?" asked Levi, squeezing his eyes into two very thin slits and clenching his jaw.

"I told you you wouldn't like it," sighed Mizuki, resignedly, with a shrug.

"Now, then' said Jacqueline Tennison, studying them from the entrance of the inn with her hands planted on her prosperous hips. "Now what's the captain doing here? Has this become a secret love getaway?"

Mizuki entered the inn, and amicably clapped a hand on her friend's back, dismissing that possibility with a laugh. "Not so much. The captain's here because he doesn't trust my ability to stay out of trouble."

"In all honesty, I expected him to pop up as early as the day after you arrived, and I find it surprising that it took him a full week to show up." Jacqueline Tennison led them inside the tiny, crowded tavern room, thick with smoke from cheap cigarettes, and nauseating smells of food and alcohol mixed together. Although she was wearing a simple commoner's dress - plentifully low-cut and tight at the hips to respectively emphasize her buxom breasts and slim waist - she was still beautiful, perhaps even more so than the Jacqueline Tennison, adorned in an elegant and expensive evening gown, whom they had met that snowy and complicated night at Villa Tennison. "Mizuki, I saved you the usual table; you still have to eat, right? Have a seat, I'll be with you in a moment. I have to take orders from a couple of gentlemen."

As she casually dispensed smiles to the middle of the room, the brat led him to a table recessed against the wall, and when they reached it, with an elegant wave of her hand she invited the captain to sit on the bench. Faced with the puzzled look Levi gave her in accepting the offer, Mizuki said simply: "You like to sit somewhere where you can keep an eye on the door, don't you?"

Had he been made of a paste less hard than volcanic stone, Levi would probably have blushed at the unmistakable evidence of the constant attention to which he and his habits had been subjected. "What does it mean that she has to take orders?"

Mizuki, seated herself at the table in turn, raised an eyebrow, amused. "What exactly is not clear to you? Jackie works here as a waitress, and waitresses..."

"I know what waitresses do." Levi stretched an arm along the back of the bench, and crossed his legs, irritated. "But the last time we saw her, that one there was wiping her ass with towels stitched with gold threads," he said, not even noticing that he had used a little inappropriate "we" in constructing the sentence.

Mizuki bit her lip, trying to maintain a serious demeanor that would not offend her superior's sensibility. "Jackie ran away from home around May; I told you that, didn't I? She brought some money with her, but she still has to make a living somehow. Especially since she has some projects planned..."

"And these projects would be?" inquired Levi in a suspicious tone.

But the brat shook her head sadly. "This is a personal matter; if you want to know, ask her, I can't tell you anything."

"Tsk, like I care what that woman is up to."

As if summoned by the conversation, Jacqueline Tennison appeared beside their table, a mocking smile hovering on her plump lips, and passed a hand around Mizuki's shoulders in a natural gesture. "And here are our lovebirds," she chirped, batting her thick eyelashes coquettishly. "Don't look at me with that grim expression, captain. I assure you we treated your dear Mizuki with velvet gloves."

The girl - who was not made of the same temperament as Levi, and was much more sensitive to certain innuendos - blushed, but still tried to pretend otherwise. "Jackie, if you enrage him, I cannot vouch for your safety."

"Oh, don't worry. If it gets bad, I'll advise you on a few tricks to get his spirits back up." Jacqueline winked at Levi.

"Something anatomically impossible?" he provoked her. He had already had enough of one brat tormenting him, without having another one added that used much less blunt weapons than mere impertinences.

The comment, far from intimidating Jacqueline, rejuvenated her. "'You'd like that. It depends on what you offer me." Then she planted her hands on her hips and bent her head slightly to the side, snatching eager sighs from the diners seated at the table next to her. "Look, I'd love to stay here and poke the captain, but unfortunately the place is full, and I have to hurry," she said, and went on to list, with a practiced manner, the day's menu. "What can I get you?"

Mizuki kept his head bent over the table, as if checking something resting on her legs; from the movement of her irises and arms and the slight musical tinkling that accompanied it, Levi guessed that she was counting the coins in her saddlebag.

"Tsk. Two tomato soups," growled Levi irritably, drumming his fingers on the back of the bench.

Mizuki snapped her head up. "Two?"

"One for me and one for you." The captain returned her puzzlement with growing annoyance. "You like tomato, don't you?"

"Well, yes, but..."

"With all the fuss you make every time they serve it in a dish, in the barracks" he grumbled, clucking his tongue. "Order something else, too. I'll bet my ass you've eaten little or nothing these days, and you've lost weight lately."

Jacqueline raised her eyebrows and whistled at the audacity of that comment, which made obvious the attention with which Levi took an interest in his subordinate and especially in her physique; he ignored her, as usual, while Mizuki's face turned dark again. "That's not true; and even if it were, I don't have enough..."

"Who gives a shit how much money you have," Levi interrupted her, raising his hand to express all of his irritation, then turned directly to Jacqueline, who was listening to the exchange of lines in silence and with extreme interest. "She's also taking an omelet."

"Good choice. She looks thin to me, too," she conceded, with a nod.

"But I don't..." Mizuki began again, rather destabilized by the new coalition between Levi and Jacqueline, which not even Lavinia or Commander Erwin, with all their foresight, could have predicted.

"'You sure are dense," snorted Jackie, tapping her foot on the floor. "He's telling you he's paying for it, isn't he? That's normal, that's how it works on dates: the man pays and the woman gets offered."

Red as the tomato soup she had just ordered, the girl shook her head, stubborn. "What macho, retrograde ideas," she muttered, although the real point of the matter was another, namely that the one between them was not a date at all. The captain was merely looking out for her, convinced as he was that she was a careless and reckless brat. But Jackie had already gone off to take the order to the kitchen, and she did not hear her friend's whispered rebuke. Feeling betrayed by her ally, who had communed with the enemy front, Mizuki clung to the only option left to her, which was to blame Levi. So this is the real power of an adult. I have to be very careful, she thought, taking on a truculent air.

"Why are you looking at like that?"

"Nothing... I was just reflecting on how powerful the enemy is."

"Half the time you open your mouth I have no idea what you're saying." Levi shook his head, as if to attest his resignation to that state of chronic incomprehension. "Leaving aside the bullshit..."

"It's not bullshit!"

"... Now you're going to explain what popped into your head a week ago."

That wasn't a question. Levi resumed the conversation exactly where they had left off in the alley, but she was glad, since the change of subject ensured sufficient distraction from the sense of pleasant warmth that had invaded her chest at the thought of his intention to buy her dinner. It had happened before that Hanje or Gelgar paid for her meals, but their gesture had never made her heartbeat quicken as it did at that moment. Trying to keep at bay the crazed pounding in her ears, she called herself stupid, immature, and a brat who became overly excited over such a triviality.

"A fact occurred to me," Mizuki said, parroting the lie she had made up about a week before and had also fed to Commander Erwin so that he would authorize her to leave HQ; he, of course, had not believed a single word of her speech but, after pondering for long minutes in silence, had granted her approval with a weary sigh. It's not a bad idea for you to take a leave of absence, considering the tone of the discussion just now. Your absence might help to soothe tempers, he had explained while intertwining the fingers of his hands thoughtfully. Mizuki sensed the reasoning behind those statements, but she did not resent them at all: she understood without difficulty why the commander, at that particular moment, considered her to be no more and no less than a source of disorder and disquiet for his soldiers.

"An inconsistency in the history of kidnappings," she continued, smoothing her cloak, under which rested the loot from the brief visit to the archive. "In short, it would be a bit long to explain now, and I'm tired. After what happened during the expedition, I needed a break from military life, and so I thought I'd take a chance: I took a leave of absence for a few days to relax, see Jacqueline and investigate."

"In Orvud," Levi commented dryly, his brows furrowed and his lips tightened into a very thin line, two indubitable signs that he did not believe a word of it.

"In Orvud. The orphanage we discovered was located nearby, wasn't it?" Mizuki didn't interrupt, and she hurriedly continued her explanation to prevent him from asking questions and to lead the discussion to less problematic aspects about which she could have told the truth or at least something very close to it. "At first, I only went around the inns of Ghent and Orvud, without success. Then, tonight, I came across a stroke of luck and took advantage of it. I broke into the city archives, as you know." Distractedly stroking the cloak she had not yet taken off, Mizuki breathed a sigh of relief and lowered her voice. "I found an interesting file. Captain, you won't believe it, but inside it are the records of all the members of the organization we are looking for. Remember the list compiled by Hanje and Moblit? All those strange, outlaw names? Here ... on each sheet contained in this file are the first names of a number of people, their nicknames from the slums - that's where I was able to make the connection to the list - the convictions served and the investigations currently underway. As well as, most important of all, up-to-date information on their whereabouts and physical characteristics of each, given in great detail. Do you realize what this means?"

Levi bent in her direction as a precaution, although he doubted that, with the confusion raging in the inn, anyone could have overheard the conversation. "Are you sure?"

In response, Mizuki nodded.

Of course, she was aware that there were certain inconsistencies in that story, and not little ones.

The research conducted by Pixis and his men, on the point, had turned out to be a huge dead end. As they had soon discovered, in fact, it was one thing to gather information on a nobleman or on popular rumors; it was quite another to conduct an investigation of criminals in the city slums, a field attributed to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Gendarmerie that, if unduly invaded, would have caused unpleasant diplomatic incidents. Which had almost happened, right from the very first questions asked by Pixis's team after the mission in Ghent, cause for outraged reactions from Dok: it seemed that the Gendarmerie bigwigs were putting almost as much effort into the defense of their prerogatives as they were into offloading downward the heaviest jobs. One had to proceed calmly, humbly and circumspectly - which is equivalent to say slowly.

And now Mizuki came across an already-formed file on their enemies kept in a Gendarmerie office.

The oddities did not stop there, although Mizuki decided to keep her mouth shut about the rest for the time being. She herself was not quite sure. She thought... it had seemed to her that the mysterious file had appeared out of nowhere, in the office: five minutes earlier, she had walked past the cluttered table of books already quickly consulted to retrieve other documents in the next room, and five minutes later, casting another glance at it, there it was, balanced on a rickety stack, just waiting to be leafed through.

"Do you think...?"

"It's possible they're looking for them too, yes. Anyway, there's no point in us wrapping our heads around it, we're not the brains of the Corps," Levi interrupted her, reassuming his scrambled position.

"No, not really," conceded Mizuki, with a half-smile. "We'll have to wait and see what Lav, Hanje, and Commander Erwin think. Speaking of them..."

At that moment, they were served dinner by a waitress who, with a smile, also placed a bottle of dark wine on the table, "a house offering for the lovebirds," she explained, following Jacqueline's instructions.

"I was saying," Mizuki resumed, her cheeks the same color as the steaming tomato soup in front of her. "Now it's your turn to explain."

Poking the thick liquid in the bowl with his spoon, Levi clicked his tongue. "I've already told you why I'm here. You disappeared, and I came to get you back. That's all."

"Look, I'm not a child! You don't need to worry so much about me."

"That you more or less can take care of yourself, I know."

Levi did not add anything else, and yet it was as if the sentence was ended with a mammoth BUT, silent and impossible to ignore.

She could take care of herself most of the time, she was smart and quick of thought, BUT he had no intention of entrusting her hopes for survival to chance. Not after the tremendous adventure outside the Walls; not after the chat in Erwin's office.

Not after he realized how much he needed her.

Still, he knew well that that answer would not be enough for her and she would keep nagging him until she received a satisfactory one. "I was already thinking of getting on your trail, when your partner came to me making a hell of a racket and started threatening me."

"Lav? Threaten you?"

"Yeah," replied Levi, thinking back to Lavinia's black eyes, devoid of all pity, informing him that she knew perfectly well what had taken place between him and Erwin, during the rescue operation, and that she was ready to reveal it to all the four winds, and especially to Mizuki, if the captain did not help her bring her friend home. "She had tracked you down: you were in Orvud, and..."

"How did she find out, if the commander didn't talk?"

"Do you think it's hard to get the coachmen to talk? You're not one to go unnoticed, you," Levi snapped back at her, at the same instant that a young man in his mid-thirties, passing by their table, gave her an overly prolonged and confidential greeting, for his liking. No, she stood out far too much, that one, far too much. It was enough to see those wavy hairs, the color of wheat when struck by sunlight and resembling honey at dusk when night fell, to never forget them again; and the laughter that escaped her at the most unthinkable moments, even that was enough to hear it tinkle once, for it to be imprinted in the ears of the unfortunate person forever. "The same thing happened here in Orvud, too. Tonight someone saw somebody like you wandering around the archive parts; I, who was looking for you, only had to ask the right question, and I found you."

Mizuki bit her lower lip and for once took to fiddling with the edge of her shirt sticking out from under her cloak - which aroused in the man a most inappropriate vision of his own hands unceremoniously tearing the buttons of the garment to free her pale neck - and not with her hair, as if she had felt the intensity of the captain's gaze and had been burned by it. "Does Commander Erwin know you are here?" she asked, to divert attention away from herself.

"I'm on leave, and I certainly didn't put myself on it." Now it was Levi who wanted to cut that talk short. He certainly didn't want to get into a discussion with her about how the prospect of granting him an indefinite leave of absence had been received less than positively by Erwin, especially given the content and tone of their last late-night conversation. If he was to be honest with himself, he had already prepared to travel to Orvud against the commander's wishes when Lavinia - as the worthy companion of the brat - had informed him that she would take care of obtaining permission from Erwin herself.

After the announcement, she had locked herself and the commander in the office for a whole evening, and when she emerged, Levi found himself free to leave HQ whenever he pleased. The captain asked no questions, although he doubted that Lavinia had used the weapons of feminine seduction to appease Erwin; he ruled it out both because the commander, however infatuated, was not the kind of man to be bent by certain tricks, and because he had had occasion to cross paths with him soon after the interview had ended, and his unusually irritated expression was not that of someone who had just spent a pleasant night in the company of a beautiful woman.

"We're going back to Trost tomorrow," Levi informed her, and placed the spoon on the rim of the bowl.

"Yes..."

"Even if you didn't find what you really came for," he specified, planting his relentless eyes on her, just to make it clear that he hadn't bought even half of the bullshit she had fed him. "No headshots or escapes tonight, or next time I find you I'll tie you up."

At those words, Mizuki gasped and gave him an inquiring look, furrowing her thin eyebrows; then her lips stretched into the usual sardonic smirk. "November is not really our month, huh?"

Levi shrugged, as his mind focused on a speck of tomato soup at the edge of her mouth. "Another incomprehensible comment."

"Even last year we quarreled heavily at this time, right after my first scouting outside the walls."

"We didn't quarrel." That tomato soup was pasty and bland, it really sucked.

"No, actually not. I didn't get angry, you were the one who was going to kill me."

"You threw yourself at an abnormal on foot and unarmed. Was I even supposed to shake your hand and bow before your stupidity?" Yes, it was stomach-churning. Perhaps, though, he would have liked it, if he had tasted it by wiping with his tongue that drop that adorned her mouth like a jewel.

"No, it was really too much, though. I remember thinking, oh, it's a good thing I'm locked in a cell, and there are these bars as thick as my arm dividing us, otherwise it's the time that sunshine's really gonna devour me."

Devoured, oh yes, he would have devoured her gladly. Not that lousy soup, of course, but her. "Tonight, however, the bars are not there," Levi thought. No, he didn't think that. He said it aloud, in a pragmatic tone, as if they were discussing Hanje's latest changes to the devices.

The pupils immersed in her golden eyes dilated, becoming two huge black holes resembling the mouth of a yawning cat, and the brat's body instinctively recoiled as if it had physically sensed how real the risk of ending up devoured really was.

Fuck.

Why did it always end up like this with her?

Why could he never hold his tongue when they talked alone?

"About tonight..." she started to say, embarrassed, but was interrupted by the greeting of yet another patron.

"Hey, little girl!"

A pair of bearded men, aged between fifty and sixty, approached their table, and were immediately glowered at by the captain.

"How are you doing tonight?" asked the one who had greeted her.

"Fine, thank you," she replied, holding her breath.

"Jackie told us that we will have a guest tonight, in our room," the man went on, as his companion nodded vigorously.

"Your room," hissed Levi, coldly, and Mizuki distinctly saw her own life pass before her eyes.

"Jackie also told us that he's your boyfriend," and here the man, who in all evidence possessed a survival instinct less developed than Mizuki's even, winked at Levi with complicity. "We'll play it cool, but still try to be discreet, eh!"

The two men snickered as they walked away, in perfect good faith and not realizing in the slightest that they had just abandoned a helpless girl at the mercy of a very likely, imminent and extremely painful death. Mizuki's light-hearted and optimistic nature sustained her even at that juncture, and she, despite the veins throbbing painfully in her neck and temples, attempted some easy irony about the situation that, to her misfortune, went completely to waste. "'How can I put it... It almost sounds like one of those absurd situations you read about in Master Jiraiya's booklets, huh?"

Levi did not bother to ask for clarification regarding yet another comment that was incomprehensible to him. "Your room?" he repeated, implacably.

The persuasive notes of the otherworldly bells filled the ears of Mizuki, who by now seemed to have resigned herself to the idea that she would not get through the night unscathed. "Let's say you just got acquainted with my roommates, captain."

At that instant, Levi sensed a devilish presence at his side, and when he raised his head, Jacqueline Tennison's sadistic, delighted smirk invaded his field of vision. "It's not like this inn is Villa Tennison, Captain. What did you expect, that everyone would have a private room complete with a key to lock themselves in? The rooms are mixed here. Oh, and besides...," and at this point in the speech, her expression of pure amusement deepened. "As I've already told old Jim, we're full tonight, there's not a single bed left; reason why I'm afraid you two lovebirds will have to share one." She then bent down, bringing her mouth close to Levi's ear so that only he could hear the end of her speech. "Oh, captain," she murmured with a snort. "It really drives me crazy to think that you will owe me from tonight on, do you know that?"

.

Levi was killing time by peering at the night sky that could be glimpsed between the sloping roof of the inn and that of the building opposite. The brat had let him be the first to use Jacqueline's private bathroom to take a shower and get ready for the night, while she had lingered in the lounge to chat with her friend, now a little less engrossed in her work; and now the roles were reversed. While waiting, the captain stretched his legs by strolling in the alley; he had proudly ignored Jacqueline Tennison's invitations to make conversation when he had passed through the hall, since he had not the slightest intention of entertaining himself with a noblewoman, however runaway and fallen.

He intended to use that time to put his own thoughts in order.

First, the more serious ones, in which the brat loomed only as a mere source of consistent problems and worries, and nothing else.

That sudden escape to Orvud did not convince him at all. It was obvious that she had not revealed to him the real reason why she had sneaked there, and knowing her - that is, having suffered on several occasions the effects of her exhausting ability to turn the tables for hours on end in order to evade an uncomfortable question - he had preferred not to press the point further, at least for that evening. He was certain that it was not the kidnapping investigation that had led her there, although she had reported some results anyway with the discovery of the file; Levi, however, had the strong impression that it had been more of a fluke than anything else.

As soon as Lavinia had revealed to him that the brat had headed for Orvud, the captain had immediately linked her sudden disappearance and her equally unexpected escape during the Ghent festival.

In July, she had admitted that she had fled into the crowd because she thought she had seen an acquaintance of hers. Now, she had turned away soon after the discovery of the presence of another ninja in the Walls who wanted her dead; a ninja who, according to Lavinia, knew her well enough to manipulate her and create conditions unfavorable to her survival.

It could not have been an accident, that she had decided to travel to Orvud specifically.

Finally, the red arrow that had guided Levi to her in the course of the rescue operation. Mizuki had glossed over that detail in giving the others the account of the misadventure, and Levi, in turn, had not mentioned it to anyone because, in the meantime, he had begun to harbor some suspicions about the authorship of the drawing. Just to stick strictly to the facts, reflecting on the incident, he had realized that when he had rescued them, neither the brat nor the recruit in her company had the backpack with the regulatory equipment with them; sure, they could still have carried on them, for some inexplicable reason, the spray can with which the drawing had been traced, but Levi did not believe that.

Above all, however, he derived the overwhelming proof of his own conviction from her attitude. Although he did not consider himself a fool, the captain was aware - and this was precisely because he was not a complete idiot - that he did not possess the brilliant brains or sagacity of Erwin and Hanje. He knew, therefore, that he could hardly notice any discrepancy in the story provided by the brat that escaped the relentless and lucid analysis of the commander and the four-eyes.

In the Survey Corps, however, there was no one who observed the brat with the same attention and intensity as he reserved for her, no one who knew her as he did, no one who had learned to pick up on the signs of latent unease in her apparently superficial and carefree behavior; no one, not even Lavinia. And Levi had read a muted, ancestral, almost animalistic fear in the way the brat's trembling hand had caressed the arrow drawn on the tree trunk; a fear that, as a rule, only incomprehensible and unacceptable events, like giants, could produce. And even earlier, he had noticed hat terror in Ghent, after her sudden escape.

The brat believed that the person she crossed in Ghent had drawn that arrow, and having returned to Orvud to set out in search of him or her, she had seen fit to keep the whole affair a secret.

Why?

And then, who knows how, another question was added to that first and logical one: who the fuck is Rei?

By association of ideas, the question brought him back to the discussion that had taken place in Erwin's office: the outburst of Loki, who had first brought up that name, the strange attitude of the brat, and finally the face-to-face conversation with the commander.

No, you didn't sleep with her, Levi, I know. The way you look at her in certain contexts says a lot about that.

What I want is for you to find a solution to the problem.

Fuck her.

The blood surged suddenly through his veins.

Fuck her.

From that point on, the thoughts became truly problematic, the kind he could never organize or control, even if he spent an entire night walking. They were the thoughts where she was a body he desperately wanted to possess, and that soon would be lying beside him.

He had no trouble imagining how it would go.

She would lie beside him, still damp from the shower, enveloping him with a wave of her fresh, youthful, and pleasant scent, and then she would look up at him, smiling provocatively in a way that could drive a man mad, just before turning onto her side, reaching out a hand to his thigh, and asking him, "So, shall we pick up where we left off last time, in that little room? Will you finally make me a woman? I've been waiting since then."

Levi shook his head stubbornly to banish that dangerous image from his mind, like mules flicking their tails to drive away tormenting flies; but the change of scenery only made things worse.

Now she was under Jacqueline Tennison's shower, in the same rectangular cubicle where he had just washed himself, and he could recall every detail. She was running her fingers slowly over her glistening skin - almost as if she knew someone was watching - pressing lightly into the flesh and creating tiny dimples. The water flowed over that thin body like it was a marble countertop, tracing lines and patterns without logic, yet Levi felt they contained the meaning of the world. A myriad of droplets slid from her tousled hair down her slender limbs, and one fell onto the hardened nipple of her small right breast, which pointed upward with the proud arrogance of certain plants growing at mountain peaks, battling against the wind and cold.

That droplet, balancing on a work of art, beckoned him softly, waiting for him to bend down and collect it with the tip of his tongue, before…

Before pushing her against the wall without ceremony, wrapping her slender waist with an arm to press her close and prevent her from slipping away, even though she didn't seem at all inclined to do so. Her slender fingers rested on the wall, covered in uneven and chipped tiles, her back pressed against Levi's chest, her firm buttocks brushed against his pelvis and soon began to move slightly, rubbing against his already excited lower abdomen; that subtle swaying was enough to make him moan like a teenager in the throes of hormones. She tilted her head slightly to the side, pressing her cheek against the wall to give him a pleading yet challenging look: from the way she looked at him, Levi understood that she enjoyed being so close to him, and that their turbulent meeting of hips pleased her even more, but it wasn't enough. She was asking for more, wanting more, just like he was. Complying with that mute request, he spread her legs slightly with a knee - she complied, rising on the tips of her toes to make it easier for him - and penetrated her with a single thrust. Her hands clenched, she bit her lips, moaned, half-closed her eyes, and moved her pelvis forward and then back, matching the rhythm of the man. "Captain…" she gasped with a voice hoarse with desire. Continuing to hold her pressed against him with one arm while he moved in and out of her, he buried his face in the crook between her neck and shoulder and rested his free hand against the wall, beside hers, to steady himself. "Levi… call me that," he whispered. "Levi," she obeyed, oddly submissive; and then repeated, with increasing intensity as he moved faster and with more force: "Levi, Levi… Levi!"

Damn.

Levi opened his eyes - which he didn't remember closing - and shook his body, trying to extinguish the waves of heat that had conquered his lower abdomen.

This was a problem, a damned and fucking problem. Despite what Erwin had told him, he hadn't changed his mind about their relationship: he categorically excluded starting something with her - whatever it was called - that could never end well, and at best, it would end with a broken heart, hers.

Yet, maintaining that resolution proved much easier at Headquarters, where they both had their own room and lived with two hundred other soldiers. As soon as the scenario changed, resisting became almost impossible: he had almost kissed her in Titan territory, and he had been on the verge of doing worse in a forgotten little room; how could he hope to control himself that night?

"Trying to calm your hot spirits with a nighttime walk in the November chill?" a voice, overly amused, inquired from his left. "If so, I don't think your plan is working, considering the old pervert expression you have on your face right now!"

Levi didn't answer, merely shooting a sideways glance at Jacqueline Tennison, whose shoulders were covered only by a very thin wool blanket. Of course, she had to mock him, as if the situation wasn't already complicated enough.

"Come on, don't look at me like you want to kill me. I'm no longer a noble, remember? And now I come in peace. In fact, more than that: I'm here to help you, since I imagine you're boiling like a potato in a pot." Jacqueline approached him with her sinuous gait and, with a gesture of practiced familiarity, pressed her body against his, placing both open hands on his chest. The blanket on her shoulders shifted just enough to give him a perfect view of her bare neck and the invitingly pressed, full breasts against his pectorals. "Oh!" she exclaimed with a giggle, feeling the boner against her leg. "I see you're already worked up, Captain. But are you really sure you want to take advantage of your beautiful lady tonight? It must be tough, really, having a beautiful, succulent cake in front of you, and not being able to even taste a little piece. I know you're a man of iron will, but if you need a hand, know that I volunteer to ease some of your tension…" Jacqueline pressed herself against him more vigorously, batting her long, slender eyelashes with serene self-confidence. "I don't mind being a substitute."

The captain, who had stiffened the moment she had attached herself to him, grabbed her by the shoulders and pushed her away. "Get away from me," he hissed, with all the disgust he could infuse into those three words.

"Oh, come on, Captain! Don't be offended!" Jacqueline leaned against the wall and watched Levi walk away, stiff as if something had just been shoved up his ass. "Do as you please, as far as I'm concerned, but let me give you one last piece of advice. Don't ruin Mizuki too much tonight: even if she'll never admit it, this mixed-room situation has made her uneasy, and I don't think she's slept much in the last few nights…"

Levi stopped on the threshold of the inn, sign that he had heard the comment, but he didn't bother to reply, and with one last click of his tongue, disappeared into the building.

Not even a minute had passed since the captain had left her alone in the cold when Jacqueline noticed a man approaching, keeping close to the wall. "Really, he's quite the fool: turning down a beautiful woman like you…"

"Oh!" Jacqueline pulled the blanket tighter around her, studying the newcomer with curiosity. Despite his slightly advanced age, he could be considered handsome: tall and slender - a characteristic that stood out even more after dealing with Captain Levi - and under the elegant black overcoat, a fit and proportionate physique was discernible. "Actually, I was just teasing the guy earlier; imagine, I haven't even finished my shift! But I was sure he would turn me down without hesitation."

"Even more so, a fool…"

"No, just a lovesick fool." Jacqueline instinctively recoiled, pressing herself against the wall; she couldn't explain why, but the man was setting off alarm bells in her mind. "He's head over heels for a friend of mine; and he's fully reciprocated, actually, at least in my opinion. However, they're both dumb, and they're complicating things far more than necessary. So I tried to give him a push in the right direction, hoping to unlock the situation between them… Although I won't hide that it's amusing to see him flounder, it makes me pity him a bit."

The man in the long black overcoat stood before her, a smirk on his lips that heightened the vague sense of threat already instilled in Jacqueline. "Even though I'm a bit taller, if you want, I can keep you company, sweetheart…"

She huddled further into the blanket, and, affecting a calm she didn't actually feel, took her leave. "Thank you for the offer, but I really must go. My break is over."

After those words, she hurried inside the inn, troubled by the fear that the man in black might try to stop her; however, he remained motionless, with the same crooked smile on his face, lost in his thoughts. Thoughts that, if only Jacqueline had the gift of reading minds, would have made her shiver with concern for the friend resting - or, she hoped, finally growing up - above.

.

The hooded man, hidden on the roof of the building across from the inn, let out a sigh of relief as he watched Kenny Ackerman walk away down the alley after exchanging a few words with the waitress.

That evening had been quite a close call.

He had been keeping an eye on her since she arrived in Orvud about a week ago, waiting for the right moment to slip the file containing the organization's members' details under her nose, when suddenly an unprecedented crisis had happened.

In the tavern where she was conducting her research, she had clashed with the police and fled with a very dangerous man on her trail. The hooded man had never dealt directly with Kenny Ackerman, but anyone intending to keep a low profile in the inner districts of the walls and avoid unpleasant problems knew it was advisable to stay clear of him.

He had only had a split second to make a decision.

Like a madman, he had rushed to find humanity's strongest soldier. He knew that he was also in Orvud and was searching for her; so he made sure to run into him as if by chance. As soon as he received the fateful question that the captain was asking everyone he encountered, he answered that he had seen a girl matching the description - heart pounding, he recalled her image: curly, petite, noisy, always in motion - at the city archives.

Having planted the seed of doubt in the captain's mind, he had then hurried to the office, carefully avoiding the two men stationed in patient wait for their prey. He entered, and, making sure not to be discovered by her, placed the file in a position he hoped was sufficiently visible.

That file, which he had been assembling through numerous difficulties and constant scrutiny, since he had plotted to lead the Survey Corps soldiers to Ghent's hideout.

Now Kenny Ackerman was finally leaving, and she had taken possession of the documents. His plan had succeeded, though he was annoyed to have had to rely on that gruff little guy who constantly buzzed around her to ensure her safety.

But it was almost over now.

Yes, almost over, he thought, rubbing his hands together. Just a little more and you will reach the truth. Don't give up, Mizuki.

.

The mixed dormitory room number four, divided by a lacquered wooden screen, was immersed in a deathly silence. Both halves contained a single bed, each occupied by bodies in deep slumber.

The Survey Corps soldiers had settled into the bed closest to the door. When she had lain down under the blankets against the wall, carefully avoiding looking in Levi's direction, the girl -wearing a thick gray woolen pajama that had once belonged to Hanje - appeared nervous and embarrassed.

"Let's be clear: the bed must remain clean," he grumbled, trying to erase that provocative look from her face.

A giggle, and a pair of golden eyes flashed in the direction of the captain, sitting on the edge of the bed. "Meow. I'll try to be a tidy little kitty, master, I promise."

Levi clenched his jaw so hard that he could taste the blood in his mouth.

Damn it.

Was she doing it on purpose, that evening, to speak so suggestively, or was it the terrible wine that woman had so kindly offered them, threatening that if they didn't finish the whole bottle, they wouldn't be allowed to use her bathroom?

"Goodnight, captain," Mizuki yawned, rolling and giving him her back.

Levi remained seated, rigid and upright, for long minutes, as if the slightest movement in such a delicate moment could break the fragile equilibrium he had struggled to create within himself. If he had moved, whether to distance himself or to get closer didn't matter, he knew he wouldn't be able to stop himself. He would slip under the covers and reach out to touch her.

In a ridiculously and offensively short time, Mizuki fell asleep; her breathing grew slightly heavier, the spasms ceased, and her limbs relaxed. Jacqueline had been right: the girl must not have rested much in the previous nights, as evidenced by the deep dark circles under her eyes. Levi wasn't sure how to react to this complete and reckless surrender: should he be pleased that she trusted him to that extent, or irritated that she didn't see him as a man?

He shook his head. Better not to dwell on such considerations.

Yes, it was advisable not to reflect on the fact that at that moment he burned with the desire to behave like a man with her.

Levi remained sitting on the edge of the bed like a wooden soldier, facing away from the object of his desire, until he heard someone fiddling with the door of the room. He then pulled his legs onto the bed and leaned his back against the wall behind the headboard, waiting for their "roommates" to set things straight.

The two men who had approached the girl in the hall entered the room, and immediately - at least it seemed so to Levi their gaze darted to the bed set against the wall, searching for the outline of a sleeping, defenseless girl, and ended up meeting a decidedly unfriendly glance. Needless to say, the two hurried past the screen to escape the silent, yet effective, threats issued by the captain.

After dismissing the intruders, Levi thought it would be better to sit again on the edge of the bed, giving his back to the object of his desire. Still, he lingered for a few more minutes in that position, enjoying a privileged view of the person lying beside him.

He contemplated her for a long time, without tiring of that shapeless heap, lacking any elegance or eroticism, that his bedmate had turned into: the girl slept curled up, even keeping her head under the rough woolen blanket of the inn, making it impossible to determine her position. Yet, in Levi's imagination, she rested on her back, her body languidly stretched, her arm extended in his direction, her hand open, in a gesture of daring invitation to draw from her source to quench his long-standing thirst. And as for that little peak protruding from the mound of blankets, Levi irrationally convinced himself it was her erect nipple, topped with the inevitable drop of water, both eagerly waiting to engage in some play with his tongue…

The drop slid into a pool of dark water, and Levi plunged with it, immersing himself in a hazy, dreamlike mist, where, for once, there were no images of dismembered bodies and blood but an abundance of nipples, tongues, intertwined fingers, and hazy golden eyes drawing him in, hypnotically…

The captain woke with a jolt; he had dozed off while fantasizing about the little bundle resting beside him. In his semi-conscious state, his body had slipped down. He was about to rise when a soft, delicate noise caught his attention, making him turn his head on the hard pillow of the bed.

She…

She was crying in her sleep.

It was the first time he had seen her break down like that.

No matter when he had encountered her, day or night, whether she was sad, joyful, or angry, he had always seen her whole and complete, a whirlwind of seemingly unstoppable energy. Impenetrable, in her own way. Even when she succumbed to those moments of despair, retreating into herself and becoming a lifeless doll, she remained paradoxically in control of herself: reliving the traumas that prevented her from sleeping at night, blaming herself, pointing the finger at herself in search of the cause of so much pain and ruin; yet, she managed to keep in check those feelings, which would have consumed her if only she had faced them with a clear mind and awareness.

At that moment, in a single bed in a filthy inn in Orvud, however, he saw her breaking down before his eyes. He saw her breaking down unwittingly; if she had been lucid, he was sure she would have controlled any emotions that overtook her.

He hated whiny girls, and especially could not stand that it was her crying, it seemed terribly wrong, unacceptable, against nature that something had happened to her in her first eighteen - almost nineteen - years of life that could tear her apart like that.

Tears streamed down her face like a flood, her body buried under the covers trembling. Mizuki expressed even sadness, a hopeless sadness, as she did with all other emotions: with overwhelming and poignant intensity, as if her very life depended on it.

He considered waking her up with a kick, to put an end to that ghastly sight. "

Don't go…" he heard her whisper, eyes shut tight. "Don't leave me. Rei…"

Again, Rei.

Typical. Even when she was suffering, she did it for someone else. Never for herself.

Then she suddenly opened her eyes, filled with a terror known only to her. Her hand emerged from the covers and pressed against her mouth, stifling a moan. She continued to cry like this for a few seconds; then, realizing that this measure would not be enough to muffle the sound, she turned to her side, intending to bury her face in the pillow.

Her lost eyes met a steel-hard gaze.

"If you dare to wipe your snotty nose on the mattress, I swear I'll slit your throat."

She didn't reply, continuing to sob uncontrollably, her hand still pressed against her mouth.

"And stop whining, damn it!"

Mizuki squeezed her eyes shut again, and the sobs ceased. She no longer trembled; she seemed to have retreated into a private dimension that belonged only to her. There, perhaps, she was screaming and pounding her fists on the ground like the snotty child she was; and, just as probably, she was telling him to go to hell. In reality, on that cold, damp night, tears streamed from the eyes of a waxen, motionless, and silent mask.

He wanted her out of there. Out of that place hidden in some obscure recess of her stubborn, childish mind that fancied itself as an adult, caught up in any hallucination born from sleep or memories.

His body's memory reacted to that instinct that had blossomed in him uncontrollably. He, too, knew how to control what happened in his mind, as much as and perhaps more than Mizuki. Yet, the sight of that broken and huddled girl in the bed before him swept away every inhibitor, every rationality.

He reached out and placed his hand on her cheek; with his usual brusque manner, he rubbed the sleeve of his shirt around her eye, soaking it with the tears flowing abundantly.

"Do you have any idea how awful your face looks right now?"

At these words, Mizuki slowly lifted her eyelids; she suddenly looked lost, disoriented, fragile, like a fawn facing the barrel of the rifle of the hunter who had pursued her like a shadow for days. The look she gave him was still bewildered, but the reality represented by the contact with his hand seemed to gradually seep into her. Levi continued to rub the same spot until it reddened.

Then Mizuki's hand, which had been pressing against her mouth, gently rested on his fingers. The skin of her fingers was damp with saliva, but from that touch emanated a warmth that conveyed itself to the captain.

"Don't touch me. You're covered in drool. How disgusting."

But she tightened her grip on those fingers as if her own life depended on it, as if they were the anchor that still tied her to reality.

They continued to stare at each other, and in her eyes Levi thought he saw a flash of defiance: take your hand away if you care so much, those golden irises seemed to say, the first hint of a conscious Mizuki since she had jolted awake.

But he didn't.

Frozen, hypnotized by those fingers, by the desperate need they conveyed, by her, he remained still.

Slowly, Mizuki leaned towards him, still holding his hand tightly. Their faces were inches apart, their eyes locked, their breaths mingling, their lips slightly parted, already aware of what was about to happen and long ready to experience it when…

When a loud fart, emitted without much ceremony by one of their roommates, echoed in the silence, breaking the spell.

Mizuki stopped abruptly, her eyes wide open. Then she began to tremble, and…

Laughter erupted powerfully from her lips; she barely had time to release her grip on Levi to bring her hand to her mouth and stifle the sound she couldn't control. Saliva splattered onto the man, who finally withdrew his fingers, while Mizuki curled up, laughing.

"Oh, here comes the old Jim's concert…" Mizuki mumbled, in the throes of hysteria. "That one was really powerful; or am I dreaming and just imagined it?"

"Are you stupid or something? Do you smell that death stench?"

Once again, that stupid snot-nosed girl left him speechless. Her ability to come back to life - to flood herself and those around her with life - stunned him. Just a minute ago she had seemed on the brink of suicide, an empty, trembling, cold shell; and now she was there, still trembling, but from laughing too hard.

How much she pissed him off. He shouldn't have worried about such a stupid girl.

"Oh, I can't take it anymore. Get out of the way."

"What?"

"Let me out. I can't hold it anymore… I'll wake them up…"

Without waiting any longer, Mizuki tried to climb over him to gain freedom.

"Hey, what the hell are you doing?" Levi snapped when he found her straddling him, her hands planted in the pillow on either side of his face, and her right knee resting next to his hip, towards the outside of the bed. Mizuki's face resembled a battlefield: the traces of the inconsolable crying that had woken her up, her reddened eyes and dripping nose, were still visible, clashing with her mouth twisted in a grimace and with the redness from trying to hold back a powerful and liberating laugh.

And then, for the second time, the silence of the room was interrupted by an unexpected sound: the other occupant of the room let out a loud, prolonged "ronf", and after that initial sound, continued to snore rhythmically, weaving a melody of alternating high and low notes in the air.

Levi and Mizuki looked at each other.

"Don't…" he began to threaten, but it was too late.

Mizuki buried her head against his chest, pressing her mouth that was exploding with life. He felt something wet soak his shirt and the skin underneath. Her warm breath blew on his neck, and the scattered curls on him and the pillow tickled his mouth.

Damn it. Damn woman, Levi cursed, finding a scapegoat to unload his frustration on - quite unreasonably - in Jacqueline Tennison.

"What is this? A concert?" Mizuki trembled, bent over his chest, shaken by small sobs, each of which made Levi acutely aware of their bodies pressed together, of how her thighs and buttocks were close to his hips, of the firm breasts rubbing against his skin through their clothes; circumstances that, on the other hand, seemed to not concern at all the snot-nosed girl, absorbed in the problem of not dying from laughter.

Once again, rhythmic and uncontrollable waves of heat surged through the captain's lower abdomen.

"Get off me. Now," he ordered; almost pleaded, hoping for some cooperation, since he himself was battling a relentless fight against his own rebellious and unruly arm, guided by Erwin's words - fuck her, fuck her, fuck her - which had already lifted to wrap around her waist and hold her.

Fortunately for the captain, Jim decided to intervene at that moment with another fart.

Yes, fuck her. While two guys a meter away are farting and snoring.

Mizuki had now reached her limit. "A duet…" she mumbled, in a trance. "A nocturnal conversation between two idiots."

The next moment, the duet turned into a trio, as Mizuki was unceremoniously thrown onto the floor with a thud. Without much thought, she sprang to her feet, grabbed her shoes from the side of the bed, and ran to the door, her face buried in her forearm.

Levi, who had sat up, saw her figure disappear down the empty corridor through the open door. Clicking his tongue, he prepared to follow her, but a certain heaviness in his legs forced him to look down and give up.

No, he couldn't follow her in that condition. It wouldn't be at all appropriate for her to notice the boner painfully pressing against the front of his pants.

.

The next morning, Levi and Mizuki left the inn early to catch the first couch to Trost. Jacqueline Tennison woke up to bid them farewell, a bit dazed from the early hour, but not enough to miss the fresh and rested look on Mizuki and Levi's evident bad mood.

"Come back to see me for your next honeymoon," she chirped, waving goodbye from the inn's door, wrapped in her usual blanket. "If you let me know in advance, I'll reserve a single room for you this time!"

As they walked down the deserted road, a few steps apart, Levi cleared his throat. "Ohi."

"Yes?" Mizuki replied distractedly, adjusting her backpack on her shoulder.

Before changing his mind, the captain shot his arrow, perhaps with excessive zeal, expressing the doubt that had been gnawing at him for a week and that, the previous night, had turned into a terrible suspicion. "Who the hell is Rei?"

She skillfully maintained a perfectly unchanged expression, the curve of her lips, her posture, her gait. Yet, Levi knew her now as well as his own pockets - he had worn out his eyes, spying on her, damn hormones - and he noticed that her pupils, once two black pins immersed in a jar of honey, dilated. "The cat I had as a child. It ran away when I was fourteen, almost fifteen, and I suffered a lot," Mizuki explained with extreme naturalness and shamelessly lying.

Then she stopped and placed a hand on his arm, forcing him to do the same; with the pads of her index and thumb, she rubbed gently, and despite the fabric separating them, the flesh responded to that call: Levi couldn't help but shiver, under a touch so slight yet enough to awaken his instincts; the memory of her body straddling his was still too vivid in him, driving him to the edge of madness.

Suddenly, he forgot everything: everything outside of her faded and lost its importance, he no longer cared about getting the answer to that question which just moments before had seemed so crucial.

As if she had guessed the course of his thoughts, her lips - those lips that had been so close to his just a few hours earlier; had she really taken the initiative and tried to kiss him when she had approached so dangerously? - curved into a sly smile; it was just for a moment, then Mizuki turned her head, pulled away from him, and resumed walking.

Sometimes a child, like when she got excited by the most trivial details and would roll on top of a man because she couldn't control her laughter. Sometimes an adult, like when she mended wounds and stopped bleeding, or closed the eyes of those she couldn't save. And sometimes a woman. Like in that moment. Like when, entering his room to face a punishment, she would take off her uniform jacket despite the cold and remain in a tight-fitting shirt because she knew he would look at her as one looks at a woman.

"Better if we move, Captain, or we'll miss the carriage," she murmured softly.

Throughout the return journey, Levi couldn't shake the annoying feeling of having been - blatantly, though with undeniable elegance - duped.

OOO

December 849

.

Levi and Mizuki's return to Headquarters elicited a warm reaction from all the Corps members. Those who knew about the deceit played on the girl during the last scouting sighed with relief; the others, unaware of what had happened, were simply delighted to have that volcano of vitality and energy around again - Gelgar, in particular, who was working hard to organize a surprise party for the girl's nineteenth birthday. Even Erwin, initially holed up behind a gloomy silence, thawed when Mizuki handed him the file recovered from the city archive.

Given the achieved victory - the discovery of documents of great importance in the fight against the mysterious organization - no one delved deeply into the reasons for her sudden disappearance; it was enough for her to repeat the story of the epiphany already fed to the captain, and they left her alone. Mizuki, however, did not harbor any particular illusions: Levi, Lavinia, and Commander Erwin did not believe her, though they refrained from pushing their suspicions further.

However, there was one aspect of the whole affair that the captain could not get past. No matter how hard he tried to ignore it, burying it under the reassuring habits of military life, one question, persistent and pressing, tormented him at all hours of the day and night, especially when his eyes caught the image of curly hair fluttering down the corridors of Headquarters.

Who the hell is Rei?

Not a cat, that much was certain. And just as certain was that in Orvud, she, using a subtle trick of feminine seduction, had knowingly misled him to prevent him from asking further questions.

So, Levi did the only thing that managed to calm him in moments of unease: one afternoon when Erwin had left Headquarters to meet with Pixis and discuss the file, he went to Hanje's dusty and disorganized office.

"Hey, four-eyes," he called, as soon as he stepped into the cluttered room filled with objects and books piled haphazardly. Avoiding with a grimace low tables covered with piles of bags and bottles, the captain made his way to the desk, where Hanje, with her glasses pushed up onto her forehead, was working feverishly, bent over some sheets full of notes and calculations.

"Hi, Levi. If you had only knocked, I would have told you to come in and make yourself comfortable."

Ignoring the comment, the captain found the least dirty chair among the free ones and sat down.

"And I would have also told you to make yourself at home, if you hadn't already done so." After stretching her back and arms and letting out a yawn, Hanje lowered her glasses to her nose and scrutinized him for a moment, immediately noting the signs of a certain discontent in his normally brooding gaze and clenched jaw. "Putting aside these little things, what brings you here?"

"There's no particular reason," he replied curtly, his gray eyes wandering around the room, noting every misplaced object and planning the measures to bring the room's cleanliness to an acceptable level.

Hanje sighed and leaned back in her chair. They had known each other for years, and Levi had the curious habit, when he was in trouble, of hiding out in her office; yet, he had the equally peculiar and dreadful tendency not to admit the reason for his visit unless confronted with the obvious and almost forced to spill the beans. Hanje, direct and blunt, found his attitude somewhat irritating, though she tried to overlook it, understanding its origin: for someone like him, used to handling everything on his own, approaching someone to ask for help, or even just to vent, must be difficult. Even so, dealing with him was truly exhausting. Should a miracle ever occur and Levi find a stable woman, Hanje pitied the poor soul who would have the misfortune of taking him on.

"Later, I'm going to the city," she informed him, planning to approach him indirectly and get him to reveal himself. "I need to buy some work tools. Will you come with me?"

"Why should I? I don't have time to waste."

A pity that you're now here, sitting in front of me all sulky, Hanje thought mischievously, barely restraining herself from repeating the observation aloud. "I don't know, maybe you need to buy something too. Tea, perhaps? Or… here!" she exclaimed, snapping her fingers. That could certainly be an issue that would unsettle someone like Levi. "The gift for Mizuki! Have you thought about it?"

The captain began drumming his fingers nervously on the desk, and Hanje was convinced she was right. "Why should I give a gift to her?"

"Do you really live under this roof? It's her birthday already! Gelgar has been talking about the party for weeks!" The squad leader ran a hand through her hair, adopting an air of superiority. "If you really want, I'll help you find one. I've already chosen one, naturally. It's a book from my collection that she really liked, and…"

Levi opened his mouth, about to say something unkind, then he stopped himself. "You get along well with the brat."

"Maybe because I don't punish her from morning till night."

"Or maybe because you both like to be a pain in the ass." The captain hesitated for a moment longer; then, clenching his fist slightly, he asked, "Hey, four-eyes: do you know who the hell Rei is?"

Hanje furrowed her brow, taken aback. "Rei? What's that?"

A sharp noise, like an object clashing against another, interrupted the conversation. From under a low table to Hanje's right, Amado Kizuki crawled out, one hand rubbing his head after bumping it against the desk and the other holding some dusty scrolls. Levi gave him an annoyed glance, not pleased that one of the girl's friends had overheard their discussion about her.

Amado's face, despite the tears of pain, expressed happiness and relief. After struggling to get up, the boy burst into a disjointed speech. "Oh, Captain! You don't know how happy I am to hear that Mizuki spoke to you about Rei! Really, I feel so relieved! After that terrible affair… after, I mean, Rei and Terence died, she never opened up to anyone, not even Lavinia, you understand? And she changed so surprisingly, and terribly that…" Something in Levi's expression caused Amado to stop his rambling. "Captain…" he stammered, as a terrible suspicion struck him. "Mizuki told you, didn't she?"

Levi pursed his lips. Now came the hard part: revealing enough to convince him to talk, without, however, divulging too many details that might make his interest too obvious. He still couldn't believe the incredible stroke of luck he'd had, and he didn't want to blow it for the sake of haste.

However, explanations were not necessary. Amado seemed to intuit the answer from Levi's demeanor and, with a groan, buried his hands in his hair. "Oh no, oh no," he whimpered. "She'll kill me… if she finds out that I talked about Rei with you, she'll kill me!"

"Amado." The captain's voice was firm compared to the boy's distressed tone. "The brat won't find out because Hanje and I will keep quiet. Provided that you talk, of course."

Hanje was surprised by Levi's unexpected decision to use the situation to his advantage, a technique normally employed by Erwin, and by the stubbornness he showed in prying into others' affairs, something entirely foreign to his character; but she chose not to comment, now curious herself, and with a reassuring nod, she made Amado sit down.

"Where to start?" the boy sighed, sinking into the chair with a despondent tone. "If I remember correctly, we've already told you that Mizuki, originally, wasn't part of our team. When we graduated from the Academy and became ninjas, she was part of another team, whose members, besides her and Master Tomiko, were two boys… Terence and Rei."

"I remember this story," Hanje encouraged him.

"Right… you see, when we were fourteen, a tragedy happened. Mizuki's team went on a mission, but something went wrong… and she was the only one to survive. That night when she came back to the Village, Lavinia Williams's house caught fire, and her mother and her twin sister, also a close friend of Mizuki, died. From that day on, Mizuki was never the same. She changed… Loki is right. It's like something inside her had irreparably broken." Amado lowered his head, seeming to shrink under the gazes of the two adults. "Back then, I didn't know her that well. I knew who she was, of course, we were in the same class at the Academy, and she was almost always with Lavinia. But that she was different, even I realized that. I… I believe that apart from her, no one knows what really happened during that mission. Since then, Mizuki has never mentioned the names of her companions, nor has she ever addressed the topic with any of us. And you know… you know how she is. Or maybe you don't. Anyway, she's one who has no problem talking about events, even unpleasant ones, that have happened to her, if she has managed to accept them. Just think about her mother, or her father's somewhat troubled past… The things she can't forgive herself… those no, she doesn't talk about them with anyone. She keeps them all inside, stewing over them. It's… it's terrifying."

Levi clenched his fist under the table again. He knew exactly what Amado was alluding to.

"Have you ever wanted to forget certain events of your life?"

"I suspect that Mizuki didn't tell the whole truth - even to the Hokage, when she reported on the mission," Amado continued with a grimace.

And one day I was given an order by a superior. An order I neither understood nor could explain; but I carried it out anyway, and carried it through to the end. What happened… is not so relevant for the sake of this talk. I can only tell you that it was terrible.

"And how do you know, Amado?" Hanje asked gently.

"After some time she had returned and hadn't hinted at wanting to confide in us… well, Loki and I might have taken an unauthorized tour of the office where the mission reports are kept. But the report on the incriminated mission had the same story Mizuki had told me and the others… something went wrong, the enemies discovered them, and they all died!" Amado made a gesture of helplessness. "It's clear that it's a lie!"

"And you? Who can't you forgive?"

"Oh, Amado…" Hanje, astonished by the boy's revelations, stood up to put an arm around his shoulders.

"I don't know what happened during that mission. I only know that it torments her, she can't forgive herself, she feels unworthy, or some such nonsense, and she no longer cares about herself." Almost unconsciously, with an automatic gesture, Amado reached for Hanje's hand and squeezed it. "And then, regardless of how it happened, Mizuki lost too many important people at once. Caroline, one of her best friends; Terence, who was her rival; and Rei… Oh, Rei…"

"Don't go… Don't leave me. Rei…"

"There was something special between those two. Yes, Rei was special to Mizuki. And I'm not just talking about their chakra affinity…"

"What about that?" Hanje immediately asked, her scientific curiosity still alert despite the gravity of the moment.

"Just an old legend. It is said that when the chakra of two people resonates, it is destined that they will be together for life. I've never believed in these stories, but…" Amado hesitated, trying to find the right words to express himself. He cleared his throat awkwardly, and with slightly flushed cheeks finished: "… but I believe there was something tender between them. It was evident from the way they looked at each other. I always thought it was Rei… I mean, his death was the reason Mizuki has always claimed to be uninterested in romantic matters."

"Oh," Hanje murmured, casting a quick glance at Levi.

But he wasn't paying attention to her.

With his lips pressed together, he stared at a spot on the floor in a futile attempt to process Amado's words.

He had finally found the answer to the question that had been haunting him for over a week.

And damn it, knowing the truth this time was far less pleasant than remaining in doubt.

.

Loki was sitting on the steps of the external staircase that led out to the rear garden of the Headquarters, where, about a year earlier, he had watched Lavinia and Mizuki engaged in a heated battle with a bruised eye. He had his long legs bent, hands hanging between them, with a distant look typical of someone deeply immersed in a matter of vital importance. Despite his absent demeanor, however, he wasn't surprised when Mizuki slipped out the door and silently settled next to him.

"Toh," Loki commented, not changing position or giving her a glance. "A silly little sheep returns to the fold."

Mizuki chuckled. "Seems like it."

They remained silent, contemplating the dark shapes of the trees visible at the edge of the garden. Since Mizuki's return, they had exchanged only a few terse and impersonal words when their respective duties forced them to work side by side. For the rest, Loki had blatantly avoided her, and she, still needing some time to sort her thoughts, had indulged his whim. Now, however, she felt ready to address a topic long postponed.

"Loki…"

"Do you want to know when I started to like you?" Loki asked abruptly, cutting her off.

"Never?" she ventured, caught off guard. She had never really stopped to consider that detail. For her part, she knew she had liked Loki from the start. They had known each other since childhood because their mothers were friends, and the Shindo family was one of the few that approached the Uchiha-Onizuka without fear or prejudice. Loki had been her first friend, the first with whom she had shared the dream of becoming a ninja, and who had encouraged her to keep going despite her parents' opposition. They had grown up together, supporting and watching each other's backs.

"I won't deny that sometimes I feel like strangling you; but on the whole, let's say I like you," Loki grumbled, running a hand through his blond hair. "The answer is pretty simple. I don't know if you remember, but as a child, I had a wonky eye…"

"Oh, yes!"

Of course, she remembered the wonky eye. That physical defect had been the main, seemingly insurmountable obstacle to little Loki's dream of becoming a ninja. And she remembered even better his decision to undergo a very delicate surgery, risking his sight, to remove it just so he could enroll in the Academy. Loki's courage had been a tremendous support for her in persevering on the path she had chosen.

"Everyone used to mock me for my wonky eye when we were kids," he continued, his gaze fixed on the night sky, veiled by clouds, as if the gray veil held the frames of their past. "You were always a little demon, even as a child. You made fun of anyone who came your way; not maliciously, I grant you, but you were still terrible. I thought… I thought you'd never spare me, with my defect. Yet, incredibly, the only thing you ever commented on about my eye was that you thought it was really cool. Imagine, at first I didn't believe you were serious! But soon, I had to admit to myself that yes, it was true: you liked my wonky eye, and you thought it was really cool."

"And if you want to know, I still think it's really cool. It was awful for me when you decided to undergo the surgery," Mizuki confessed; then she sighed, amused, and shook her head. "So with everything we've been through, really, that's what made me likable to you?"

"What can I tell you? Besides your optimism and your ability to find the good even where there isn't any, you don't have many other qualities."

She laughed. "No, I guess not."

Then silence fell between them again, but now every trace of tension and distrust had vanished.

"Loki…" Mizuki tried again, and again he interrupted her.

"Listen, I'm sorry for how I acted the other night. I treated you horribly and said terrible things that I don't really think. It's just that…"

"I know, sometimes I'm irritating." Mizuki leaned forward, resting her head on his shoulder. "You got angry because I can't do it anymore, Loki. Thank you for getting worked up on my behalf."

The boy, feeling her head resting against him, stiffened. "Mizuki…" he whispered. "What happened during that mission?"

She remained silent for a long time, and the tension in her limbs revealed to him the fierce battle raging in her chest. "I…" she said, trembling, then stopped, and once again silence stretched into interminable minutes. "I can't do it, I'm sorry."

Words spoken in a whisper laden with pain, words marking yet another defeat against the demons that haunted her mind and soul.

As if he had been waiting for that moment, Loki wrapped an arm around her shoulders; he held her close, as if supporting her after a long and exhausting run, to prevent her from crashing to the ground. "I know," he whispered. Yes, he knew how fiercely she had fought against herself and her guilt; and he knew how much it burned to face the realization of having lost once again. "I know. But it doesn't matter."

Before she could muster the energy to respond, in the distance, the Trost Tower bell rang twelve chimes, muffled yet unmistakable to the two ninjas' ears.

It had just struck midnight.

Loki ran a hand through Mizuki's hair and placed a kiss on her temple, an intimate gesture filled with affection. "Happy birthday, stupid optimist. You're nineteen, almost twenty," he whispered in her ear, as if revealing an unconfessable secret. "I promise that I'll do everything I can so that next year you can celebrate with your family."

Mizuki buried her face in Loki's shirt, inhaling his strong scent, which smelled of mint and moss and memories of a happy childhood, feeling stupidly safe. "Always the same show-off! You can lower your guard; there are no girls to impress here."

"Shut up, you idiot…"

They stayed there for a few more minutes, exchanging silly jokes and observations, laughing and teasing each other; then Loki stood up to go back to bed.

"Go ahead," Mizuki told him with a reassuring nod. "I'll stay here a little longer."

"Don't stay up too late. You're starting to get old, and if you stay up late, you'll get wrinkles and dark circles."

After Loki left, Mizuki hugged her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, in a vain attempt to hold onto the warmth his presence had given her; her chest overflowed with a sweetness that cradled her, making her feel whole, complete, and less dirty and guilty than usual.

"I promised that I would bring you all home…" she mumbled, an affectionate reprimand more for herself than for the absent Loki.

She would do anything to succeed, to avoid making the same pathetic mistake as four years ago.

Even facing the unknown threat looming over them all.

And then, she now understood she wasn't entirely alone in playing this dangerous game.

Someone had scattered fallen trunks in her path, hoping the giants would devour her. Nearly a year later, that same someone had exploited her feelings for the captain to separate her from the team and eliminate her.

But someone - another someone - had tried to save her, marking a red arrow on the trunk of a tree to indicate her position to the rescue team.

Someone was trying to kill her. Someone was trying to help her.

There are two. The ninjas on our trail are two.

"Is it really you, though?" That whisper, which held both a question and a prayer, was swallowed by the darkness of the night of her nineteenth birthday.

OOO

Good afternoon everyone!
Since Kenny and Itachi make their appearance in the first part of the chapter, I would like to make some clarifications as to the timing of their meeting and, more generally, the chronology of the story; of course, the reason why Itachi was in Paradis to meet Uri Reiss will be revealed later, so I ask for your patience, here I would like to focus only on the years and the interlocking.
The datum from which I started to place the past events is Mizuki's age: she in the year 848 turns eighteen, so she was born in 830; more precisely, on December 4, 830. Levi, on the other hand, in the year 848 turns 30 years old on December 25.
Having put this period, I set off to do my own calculations. I imagined that Sasuke was 21 when Mizuki was born; a bit precocious, the boy, I'm aware, but to make the math add up he needed to have a daughter at an early age, and he did. 21 years old in 830; he is 16 when he kills Itachi, so their confrontation takes place in 825; Itachi's journey to Paradis is placed a few months before his death at the hands of his brother, and thus in early 825. In 825, meanwhile, Levi is 7 years old.
In the original work - at least in the manga, which is my point of reference - the year in which Kenny Ackerman meets Uri Reiss is never given; somewhere on the Internet I found the year 829 reported, but I think this is an unofficial datum. In any case, I took poetic license to have them meet a few years earlier, so that in 825, during Itachi's visit, Kenny was already around.
Again appealing to poetic license, I imagined that Kenny took charge of Levi when he was five years old, and thus in 823, but that he did not take care of him night and day, like a nanny. Kenny kept an eye on him and provided a living for him, and during the periods when he was in the Underground City he taught him what we know, which is how to fight and how to survive. During the years they were together, however, Kenny spent short periods on the surface, in Uri's employ, and then settled there permanently after he abandoned Levi.
I don't know if this reconstruction convinces you ... I hope it does!
One last note: there is nothing romantic between Loki and Mizuki, only a deep and healthy friendship; by the way, Loki is a hardcore ladies' man, although you wouldn't expect him to be, and with his somewhat braggy manner he is quite successful among the girls in the Corps.
I hope you have enjoyed the recent developments. I send you a kiss, and see you next time!
A.