Glory For Mankind | AOT [book 1]

Ch.4:Red

If you told Ruvik, that in three years after training with Shadis, he would find himself where he is right now. He would probably tell you to go fuck yourself.

But now, he wasn't sure about anything anymore...

The fourteen year old boy sat in a pool of blood. His body soaked in the crimson substance, his hands shaking as his mind was running at the speed of light. Unable to fully process the sin he had committed, what he did to this man.

He had to do something.

He couldn't just stand there.

He had to do it.

If he didn't, the man would've--Ruvik clenched his eyes, snapping himself away from the thought.

Those disgusting hands, he saw the way they reached out towards the girl, and when she started screaming, he couldn't take it anymore. Ruvik rushed over, pushed himself between the man and the girl, and attacked him.

The man pulled out a knife on Ruvik, but that mattered little.

Everything after that was a total blur.

He remembers grabbing the knife, using his military training to knock his opponent off his feet and acquiring the weapon to his advantage.

He remembers how the blood would fly out of the man's body whenever he reeled the knife back inside the man's chest cavity.

He remembers screaming and crying, but at this point, he wasn't sure if it came from the girl, the man, or himself. He doesn't even remember when he stopped.

That was when his heart dropped to his stomach and his shoulders shook, the gravity of the situation finally dawning on him.

He just killed someone.

As he sat there, wallowing in the blood, the Military Police arrived. The elite soldiers gasped at the sight, reeling back at the putrid smell of garbage and blood.

"Shit..."

"I think I'm gonna be sick..."

The alleyway walls were covered in blood, everything was dyed red, and in the midst of it all was the fourteen year old boy that had just graduated from the Training Corps. How the hell did one scrawny teenager deal this much damage? A corpse twice his size and three times his weight, slowly rotting away as the blood dried.

One of the MPs walked over towards Ruvik. "Are you okay there kid? You dealt quite the damage on that asshole."

The boy didn't respond, his eyes were busy staring at his quivering bloodstained hands.

"What's your name, kid?"

"R-Ruvik...Ruvik Ritter." He stammered.

"Ritter? As in Alfred Ritter? Last I heard, he only has daughters." He turned to his partner. "Do you know anything about this, Sullivan?"

The other soldier chuckled. "Surprised you don't, Jamie. Haven't you heard? He's Alfred's bastard son."

The first one nodded, before helping the traumatized boy to his feet. "Come on, kid, let's get you cleaned up and somewhere safe. This smell is making me sick."
                                                                                   

The next day, blank brown eyes of the fourteen year old boy stared at the wooden table before him. The wood was all chipped and dented in multiple places, it looked like a single kick would send the whole structure down. His eyes trailed from the dents on the table to the Lone ant that was crawling along the surface.

Brown orbs were trained to the insect as the door to the room was opened and closed. Three male figures  walked in, two were bodyguards for the fancy man dressed in pristine clothes. The fancy man sat across the blank faced boy and placed the file before him, on the table and flipped open.

"Ruvik Ritter" he began. "Fourteen years old and almost one year fresh out of the Training Corps, currently a respectful soldier among the Scout Regiment."

The man's eyes drifted away from the file he was reading, landing on Ruvik. There was no reaction to the boy, none. He remained expressionless, blank, broken, empty. The older man returned his gaze, and continued reading. "You have a family, right?"

No response.

"Mother and a little brother, huh? Do you provide for them?"

No response.

According to what this says, your family is going to be thrown out to the streets soon. You came from a poor family yet you're a Ritter, I'm sure your father sends you some money over...Does he?"

The two guards sent an uneasy glance to one another, something about the didn't sit right with them.

The man sighed, leaning back in the chair he sat on. "Listen kid, a few weeks ago we began hunting down a criminal that went missing, and just yesterday, we find him with you--dead. Do you understand the gravity of the situation?"

Despite the tension, he continued. "You took down a highly dangerous criminal, and we commend you for it. Luckily, it was you that put an end to him before he hurt anyone else. Thank Shadis for putting you on leave...Why are you on leave anyways?"

There was silence, and when the man was about to speak again, the boy across from him spoke up. "Stress."

"Stress?" The man repeated.

Ruvik said nothing more, letting the silence return before asking. "What do you want from me? If this is really just about that fat ass I caught, you would just pay me and let me go. So what do you want?"

"Ha, you're pretty smart kid." Mister fancy pants leaned in. "You care about your family, yes? You don't want them on the streets, right? I have a proposal for you kid, something you can't refuse."

"What is it?"

"How about we make a deal?" The man closed the file and smiled at Ruvik. "You drop a few bodies for us and we'll compensate you handsomely for the trouble."

"You...you want me to kill people?"

"When you say it like that, you make it seem bad, but these people, they're bad people Ruvik. They deserve what's coming to them." Mister fancy pants chuckled to himself. "And you're only going to benefit off their deaths. Your family will receive more than enough money to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. Your little brother, Tobias, doesn't need to live in poverty...like you did."

"Tobias..."

"He's quite young. About six years old, right? You don't want him to grow up the same way you did...do you?"

"..." Ruvik stared at his hands.

Taking a life...intentionally?

The man from last night was an accident, he just wanted to stop what he was planning to do to that innocent girl. He never has actually wanted to murder someone before. But maybe this flamboyant man was right, that man he killed?

He deserved to die.

They all deserve to die.

These five words almost scared him.

His thoughts were becoming something nasty. Ruvik was beginning to believe they weren't even his. But he couldn't help it, nor can he bring himself to stop them from festering. One can almost say he's losing his sense of humanity.

A bad man's death to keep good people alive.

That's how you serve justice, right?

"What do you say, kid? We got a deal?"

Ruvik's head rose, and the man across from him was expecting this. Just a few minutes ago, this fifteen year old millennial looked empty, but now...there's this look in his eyes that sent shivers down the older man's spine. They were expressing excitement.

"Deal."