A Sinner With A Smile // An AOT Time Travel AU

A Broken Sense Of Justice

Another year passed. Eren was now eight years old, and his hair which he had decided to grow out as he had in his previous life now reached a little above his shoulder blades, causing him to start carrying elastic bands and pieces of cloth to tie up when needed. Carla was now in a significant dilemma: she either cut it because it had gotten longer than considered appropriate for males in Shiganshina, and let him grow it out. After all, he looked so freaking cute with long hair!

In the end, at the boy's insistence, he was allowed to keep his long hair, but Eren started to receive contemptuous glares in the streets. According to religion, long hair in men, which 'caused them to look more effeminate', was considered improper. Religion declared both genders must act like their proper genders. It was quite ridiculous, but many people were stout believers, so Eren's decision was not well-liked.

The boy did not mind the displeasure and disgust directed towards him: why would he, when this amount was like an ant compared to a horse when he thought about his previous life. The negativity he had gotten during his murder spree was incomparable to this measly amount.

Still, there had been several assault attempts from children around his age due to his 'improper appearance'. He had beaten them all thoroughly and made sure they wouldn't dare look him in the eyes again, but it was still perturbing the hate a simple hairstyle had caused him.

Especially since following his beating of the second batch, the parents had come and accused him fo being at fault. They had claimed that his hairstyle was distracting their children and being a bad example to them, so he should have it cut. Also, he should be punished for beating up their children, even if they had attacked first because they had a 'valid reason' to do so. They were acting like he was a stripper dancing in front of children, which was actually quite amusing to Eren.

The same couldn't be said for Carla, though. When the parents had insisted on punishing Eren, the woman exploded, and nearly ripped them apart with her teeth like a wild animal. Instead of gaming them physically, she bashed them to the ground using only words, and wounded their pride so harshly even a month after the incident they would lower their heads, tuck their tails between their legs, and run away if they came across her.

A rumour also spread around town that claimed Carla was secretly a beast who could lift carriages easily, run from one side of the district to the other within minutes, and even ate human meat for dessert. When he first heard the rumour, Eren laughed his ass off for hours and suffered from a massive stomachache afterwards. That night, he told his parents what he had heard, and while Grisha was also amused, Carla was infuriated that she was being painted that way when she was a 'delicate lady'.

Laughing at that comment earned Eren the punishment of cleaning the restroom for an entire month, but it was worth it. Delicate lady, his ass. His mother cut down trees in half the time most males took, and when she wanted to, she could curse so creatively the weak would faint.

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One day mid-summer, Eren and Armin were allowed to venture by themselves after doing their assigned chores as always. The two decided to challenge themselves by creating a map of Shiganshina containing every single alleyway and shop. They were feeling bored after completing their last challenge of pranking as many people by egging them a few days ago. (The challenge had lasted an entire month by the way, before they had gotten bored from egging the same people over and over and experiencing the same reactions repeatedly.) That had earned them a harsh scolding, but it had been worth seeing the people they egged (For some reason, they were the ones that opposed Eren's hairstyle the most. Hmm, what a coincidence!) look remarkably befuddled when an egg made contact with their heads. Eren and Armin had managed to improve their marksmanship by a large margin with this challenge, and now they could hit almost every target even from a hundred meters away.